Greetings Members! This was a big month for the Child Rights in Practice social network. There are now...

Greetings Members!

This was a big month for the Child Rights in Practice social network. There are now over 240 members in over 90 countries and the number of visits has increased over 100% since the CRIP Learning Forum conference. It seems fitting that this first month would include the 20th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The CRIP social network has plenty of great content on the topic.

Convention on the Rights of the Child
Elise posted a news item about the Release of UNICEF flagship report, 'The State of the World's Children' Special Edition. Roxane Schury posted a press release from Save the Children encouraging US Ratification of the Convention on ... We also posted a video with an insightful report from Aljazeera - US yet to sign UN child rights treaty. I was inspired to see Ismail Mohamed Abdi, a member from Somaliland, post an album of photos celebrating the convention in Somaliland. Here is the album:

Even-though Somaliland is not a recognized country internationally, wonderful activities for celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the CRC has been carried out in major towns of Somaliland. The Activities was organized by Ministry of Justice of Somaliland, Save the Children Denmark, ANPPCAN and UNICEF in active participation of the children. The CRIP site also has a slide show on the Articles of the Convention, a video animation of the convention for children and Adem Arkadas-Thibert added a news post about Children's videos for CRC@20.

Share Your News about Child Rights in Practice
The news section lists items posted chronologically. Dr. Philip Cook recently posted: “Weaving the Thaise” Creating a child centred, culturally grounded child protection system in Timor Leste. It was great to read this kind of thoughtful sharing coming from Dr. Cook, who is up to so many activities in so many places all connected to realizing the rights of the child. For those who attended the conference they probably remember Philip committing during the Dream Catcher to increasing his participating on the social network… bravo to Philip for keeping his word!

All members are welcome to add a news post on a topic you deem relevant to the network. What are you doing? and What do you see others doing worth sharing with the network? No participation, no development. We all benefit from your contributions. You can view all the news posts here.

Discussions and Groups Focused on Child Rights in Practice
Some of the CRIP Learning Forum topics are being taken up as either Discussions in the Forum or as Groups as in the case of the Indigenous Child Welfare group started by Vanessa Currie.

Being in these discussions and participating in groups means sharing and inventing possibilities as well as committing to action. Here is an excellent example of how we can weave our strategies together.

Gerison Lansdownrecently started a discussion titled: Measuring Child Participation that includes the materials she presented at the conference. The discussion has evolved to Maria Lucia Mesa proposing to collaborate and pilot Gerison’s tools in Columbia.

This is an example of the value of a social network; sharing our work in ways that contribute to each others capacities to be effective and successful. What would your work be like if you were connected to “all the right people”? Perhaps you are!

There is also an open discussion on Jobs, Internships, Opportunities Postings if you know of any please add them. Recently there was a job posting for working with the IICRD in Southeast Asia. Maria is also in discussion with Camilo Guageta about participation in an International Training Program on Child Rights, Classroom and School Management that looks like another great opportunity.

Growing the Social Networking Site
Elise, Holly and I are working to creatively grow our network. We have a group forming that includes strong leaders such as Manuel Manrique, Derek Petersen, and others interested in building the network. Please let us know if you want to be part of this group. We are planning a survey and are interested in your input. We are planning to host additional basic training and introductory sessions like we did earlier in the month.

Child Rights Calendar of Events
We are working to maintain a comprehensive community calendar for all child rights related gatherings and conferences happening around the world. Please add events you're aware of. We invite you to consider writing a news post about your participation in any conferences and gatherings. This is just the kind of information want to share with other members in the network.

Inspiring and Insightful Videos on Child Rights
If you are looking for a burst of inspiration, there are over 60 videos on a wide range of topics related to child rights and social justice. If we rate the videos we can start by viewing the highest rated; this is an easy way to benefit from our “collective intelligence”, it takes just a click to rate a video you watch. Here is currently highest rated video.... turn up the speakers... and let the music in, it's a gem!
Here are all the videos Please add your favorite videos and photos to the site. There is more happening on the social network than anyone of us can comprehend. We invite you to "dig into the site" it's content and the conversations happening to see what you discover and what you can offer.

We invite you to comment on this post and share your point of view with all of us!