Panos Caribbean will continue it’s year long observation of it’s 25th Anniversary by highlighting its projects and activities on Children and Youth. Beginning September 2011 through to November 2011, the organisation will highlight it’s major achievements and current projects on this very vulnerable population.
Children and young people in the Caribbean face numerous challenges. At Panos Caribbean we believe that youth can provide solutions to those problems. At the core of our programmes and project activities targeting children and young people is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which outlines the basic human rights to which children everywhere are entitled. One of those rights is for children to be able to express their own opinions on matters affecting them and that these are taken into account.
The Convention also speaks to the child’s right to receive and share information of all kinds either orally, written in the form of art, or through any other media of their choice.
Over the next few years we will continue to promote the full participation of Caribbean children and youth in the development process by including their own voices and perspectives through various media into public debate via:
- Capacity building – training of children to report on HIV and related issues: via our Youth Journalism Programme “Our Own Voices – Youth Communicating Through the Media”.
- Documenting the Voices of children and young people: This involves the production, publishing and broadcasting of material for circulation in media and via the Internet.
- Providing a platform for children and adolescents to communicate their perspectives on issues that affect them; including stigma and discrimination, sexual and reproductive health rights, various forms of abuse and neglect.
- Working with media to improve media’s understanding of issues related to children and young people and encourage responsible reporting on those issues.
- Conducting media analysis & monitoring to measure the effectiveness of our activities, to determine the extent to which issues concerning children are being reported by the media and how media treats those issues.
Since its inception in 1985, Panos Caribbean has facilitated the creation of 16 journalism groups in the Caribbean in Haiti, Jamaica and more recently in St. Lucia.
Over the next three months Panos will highlight some of our most outstanding youth journalists some of whom have gone on to become young journalists working for major media out fits in the Caribbean. We will also showcase some of the media productions conceptualized and produced by the young people including Public Service Announcements and short videos on children’s rights.
Panos Caribbean kicked off it’s year-long 25th anniversary celebrations with a three month focus on our environment programme. (June – August 2011). From September – November the focus will be on Health (HIV) and from December- February the spotlight will be on our Gender programme from March – June 2012.
