See here the recordings, chat files and follow-up to the Suvemäe – Pioneer of Possibility events organized by #ClarifyCompulsoryEducation and held on December 10th, 2023, the 75th Anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
During 2023, UCY has been involved in concerted efforts to create a sustainable global action campaign to raise awareness of the kinds of environments young people need in order to create a life they wish to live.
The Compulsory Campaign, the first major action of the larger global campaign lays the foundation. It calls on the United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to clarify its use of the term “compulsory education” to mean education that fully respects the best interests of the child and which is not intended to imply coercion.
This campaign is based on the IDEC 2023 Resolution and was launched on World Children’s Day, which celebrates the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on November 20th.
You are invited to join the growing movement of people from all around the world to create inclusive conversations about what we want the word ‘compulsory’ to mean for education going forward!
This call to action can be seen as a response to the 2021 UNESCO report titled Reimagining our futures together: a new social contract for education, which “aims to catalyze a global debate on how education needs to be rethought in a world of increasing complexity, uncertainty, and fragility.”
The following provides information about a March 2023 event that has led to the Compulsory Campaign. It also presents an overview of the past and future of UCY, which focuses on the mental health of young people as a prerequisite to creating a just society. Social justice and self-determination are identified as top core values of mental health, and believing that our children are our future, the goal is to provide the environments they need to become independent, democratic and caring adult citizens who know themselves and who have a strong sense of wellbeing.
Democratic Rights and Democratic Schools
Uniting for Children and Youth (UCY) is not an organization. Think of it as a meeting place for advocates of human rights and democratic learning to strategize and act together in building public awareness of how the better treatment of young people benefits everyone. UCY does not accept donations, but it encourages people to generously support the efforts of those dedicated to empowering young people.
Currently UCY is collaborating with others to help make the Democratic Rights and Democratic Schools gathering a success. A list of other collaborators is found in the description of the event. Additional organizations are encouraged to become collaborators and to work with us to grow the conversation around reimagining education. Please register here. Modify this sample letter to encourage people to register for the event and at the same time to bring attention to your work.
In addition to attending and supporting this event, kindly consider taking some the following actions to build awareness of how education needs to be transformed.
- Subscribe to and give gifts of The Progressive Education Bulletin
- Attend and/or provide support for interested people to attend courses such as The Learning Expedition.
- Purchase and have local libraries acquire books pertaining to democratic learning such as those listed on the Youth Rights Day website.
- Become a member of an organization promoting youth empowerment and help them to sustain their work.
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The Past and Future of UCY
Visit Topics for Conversation to learn more about the issues.
Visit: Recap January 2020 to Present
for a fuller report on UCY activities during COVID.
The Child Friendly Community Conference, November 20-22, was the primary undertaking of UCY in 2020. Much discussion has occurred since and the focus is now squarely on the mental health of children and youth. The first two core values of the Canadian Mental Health Association – Ottawa offer guiding principles.
- Social Justice
The equality of all individuals; fairness, individual rights, freedom of choice, and privacy. - Self Determination
The rights of individuals to be involved in all choices that affect them.
Mental Health = Social Justice + Self-determination
This short video stemming from the Child Friendly Community Conference introduces youth who serve as ambassadors for young people and as models for young and old to emulate.
Visions of the challenges we face in transforming our public schools to support the shift to a healthy and sustainable way of living are provided in the following two talks.
- Zineb Mouhyi speaking at the AEROx conference February 2021
- Zak Stein speaking at the Ecoversities conference February 2021
Impact the Future is an initiative started by Prajaa Tickoo when he was fifteen year old. Kindly contribute to his effort by completing his sentence:
“If I could I would . . . “.