3.2 Guidelines for teaching
3.2.8 Beggar children
Workshop led by Michel Bastien, Inspector, Belgian Ministry of Education, and Saliou Sarr, lecturer in history and geography, Thiès Teacher Training College, Senegal.
The aims of the workshop were the following: a. to raise awareness of situations of exclusion in the world and in each participant's professional environment; and b. to suggest action which could be taken against various forms of exclusion in an educational setting.
Key words: co-operation, dignity, rights of the child, exclusion, international governmental organisations (IGOs), international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), partnership, protection of rights.
Workshop stages: a. five case studies were presented, corresponding to actual situations experienced in Romania (among Roma children) and Senegal (the Talibés: beggar children in Koranic schools) on which the workshop leaders had worked developing projects to support and protect the rights of children as part of their respective professional activities; b. each working group was given one case study; c. participants were asked to compare the case studies with the content of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Convention on the Rights of the Child. The aim of the exercise consisted in emphasising the violations of the rights and fundamental freedoms of the children seen in the case studies; and d. participants were then asked to identify the legal means of protecting the rights of these children, and the governmental and non- governmental organisations which were competent to intervene.
The second part of the workshop set out to invite participants to pool their professional experiences in order to make a list - which was not exhaustive - of educational action which could a. make their pupils and parents aware of cases of violations of the rights of children; b. link their school into the project; c. make the local and national authorities aware of the issue; and d. encourage intervention by IGOs and NGOs in the field of violation of rights.
Materials: Case studies available on request from the workshop leaders. UN: Collection of international instruments.
References: Bastien, M., Gourlé, M., Hamaïde, I. and Jospin, B.: Découvrons la Convention des droits de l'enfant, Labor publishers, Brussels, 1995. Apprendre à coopérer in: Entre-Vues, No. 1195-25, Brussels, 1994.
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