Child Agency and Participation –The Journey into the Future: Susan Durston

by Susan Durston

I was lucky enough to be part of the launch of Child to Child in 1978, just before the first International year of the Child. The organization, which won the Maurice Pate Award of UNICEF in 1991, was a decade ahead of the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC). Its philosophy and outreach was originally centred on school children helping other children and their communities, especially in low income countries, by relaying health messages to out of school children and their own families. There are several rigorous research projects which have illustrated the efficacy of this approach and which are still replicated today.

As the current chair of trustees of Child to Child I am immensely proud of the fact that several large international organisations such as SAVE, Plan and World Vision, partnered with Child to Child in the initial stages of their child participation journeys. There was also a partnership with UNICEF, particularly in the Getting Ready for School programme in 2009 in six countries, and on a visit to Ethiopia in 2018 I witnessed the enduring life of this initiative. How wonderful that large organisations could listen to a small INGO!

However, it was an instrumental view of children as the Citation of UNICEF’s Maurice Pate Award, 1991 stated: “Child-to-Child ultimately contributes a new, effective, revolutionary idea to educate the people and the community to lead a better, healthier life through children. “

It needed the birth of the CRC to articulate participation as a right, including the right to be heard, which created the normative framework. Listening to children, especially those articulate enough to speak their views, on topics such as climate change and the impact of COVID has now become accepted in some circles. There are many reports, webinars and videos which disseminate children’s and young people’s views around the world, at least to agencies, academics and policy-makers, though tokenism and elitism can still be an issue. But how often do children and young people have any knowledge of what happens to their views, and how does it improve their lives?

Adolescent activism is more common and now some young people have the possibility of becoming a voice for their own future-at least in part. While there is still a need for the majority of adolescents to be a part of or initiate such movements, they now have role models, social media, and more manuals developed by agencies-this time for youth activism, especially visible in the climate change campaign.

This did not start with Greta Thunberg, but she is notable for three things: one is her commitment to personally put into practice what she is advocating; another is that her country, Sweden, has a long tradition of support to young people to voice their views, and the third is her condition. It is probably because of her condition rather than despite it, that she is empowered to do what she does. Consultations with disabled children reveal that they feel much more capable than adults give them credit for and feel that adults do not allow them the opportunities they deserve. What potential talent is being missed!

However, in the world today, there appear to be many more opportunities for participation for adolescents than there are for younger children, for whatever reason: could it be concerns around national security and unemployment; or perception of greater maturity and skills?

But the belief of children that they can influence change and learning skills to do that, can and should begin at a very young age. Whether children are mature enough to have a voice and take action is often used as an excuse to deny them and maintain the existing power relations. Organisations have often not been willing to invest the time needed to support children’s agency, and stop short at hearing only their voice.

There are several documented concepts of what constitutes real and ethical child participation (Hart, Lundy, Lansdown etc.) and it can take different forms. Children exercising agency is at the core of the Montessori education method for young children, and several education and political systems incorporate child participation (for example rights respecting schools in the UK and Thailand, the Scottish and Indian children’s parliaments; child participation in healthcare in Ireland, to name but a few). These are the well publicized national initiatives, but there are many more local ones, where children express their views and work on what they feel is important in their immediate environment. Child clubs have been a popular vehicle for this, and in some cases have been responsible for confronting child marriage and other issues in communities. Nepal has excelled in these and school graduates have even formed alumni associations of child club members, who continue their voluntary community work using skills they learned as children.

And what of adults? The Minister of Education for Sierra Leone on a panel during COP26 was heard to say that his preference would be to have young people chair all the COP sessions. Children need champions like him. Not only do adults need to account to children, but they play a crucial role in child participation, and rather than perceiving this as a threat, they need to be the facilitators of child agency. They also need to protect children from danger particularly, as has been seen too often, from dangers on the internet and social media.

Personally I feel optimistic that recognition of the capacities of children and young people and the part they can play in their own and the planet’s future is increasing at every level, if adults will create the spaces for children to learn appropriate skills and flourish. The key is to start from a position of capacity rather than deficit-the belief that children can and that what they need is support and protection.

Several current trends are helpful to this:

1. Recovery from COVID, not back to normal, but to create a better world than before, is only possible if children participate in decision-making;

2. There is a move to push aid funds south (a euphemism for the marginalized which actually exist in every country) both for development and research, and hopefully to smaller NGOs and community organisations;

3. An increasing emphasis on teachers as pivotal in the education sector and which has to include the training of teachers to create supportive spaces for children to build skills of participation and exercise their agency;

4. The growth of national and local structures for child participation, such as children’s parliaments and national child participation frameworks (for example Uganda, where UNICEF worked with government to achieve this) encourage civic participation in general. Along with gender and inclusion strategies a participation framework is needed in every sector plan and assessment system.

5. Increasing attention to child participation is evident in research and education, including at the early childhood stage, and needs to be taken up everywhere.

Of course, as an ex-Global Director of Education in UNICEF, I have a more detailed wish-list for education sectors! Participation is not just good for better service delivery, and a right in itself, but who knows-children may just be able to find solutions to the issues that adults can’t…..

This article is part of the XUNICEF News and Views Quarterly Newsletter, December 2021.

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