Young people raise awareness of their rights
In partnership with the Scottish Government and Children in Scotland, we’ve launched ‘ActivateYourRights’ – a pack of resources that will help children and young people understand and protect their rights.
ActivateYourRights supports proposed legislation that, if passed by the Scottish Parliament, will incorporate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into Scots law. Over the past year, we’ve empowered children and young people to take the lead in developing a range of resources to increase awareness and understanding of the UNCRC and children and young people’s rights in Scotland.
The young volunteers created the ActivateYourRights Facilitator Pack that will prepare nursery, primary and secondary school teachers, youth workers and other educators ahead of the historic legislation. They also created ActivateYourRights resources for other young people to access directly in their own time online.
The activities and interactive workshops in the new ActivateYourRights Facilitator Pack will help educators to support children and young people to learn to identify their rights and recognise when they are being upheld – while encouraging them to defend their rights and ask for support to ensure they are recognised.
Educators can access the ActivateYourRights Facilitator Pack on youngscot.net. There’s also articles, videos, podcasts, and quizzes for young people in the ActivateYourRights section of young.scot for young people. The resources translate the UNCRC into everyday examples of rights being upheld.
It's really important for children and young people to be able to recognise and understand their rights. It was brilliant for the panel to work so closely with Young Scot and Children in Scotland to develop these inspiring educational resources for our teachers and other educators. I really love the interactive content that young people can access on the young.scot website. Lucia, 16, Dundee
The UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill will revolutionise the way we listen to children and take their rights into account. It is important that young people understand those rights and know that they are entitled to have those rights respected, protected and fulfilled. We hope ActivateYourRights will be a useful tool to help spread the message. We want to put children and young people at the heart of policy and decision-making that affects their lives, so it is fitting that they were involved in this exciting project. John Swinney MSP, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills
Scotland is putting children and young people at the heart of the decision-making process to protect their rights. Through ActivateYourRights, we’re empowering young people to recognise their rights and to know what to do when they aren’t respected. Louise Macdonald OBE, Chief Executive, Young Scot
Through our engagement work, we’ve learnt how central rights are to the way children and young people express themselves and experience the world. As we move towards full incorporation of the UNCRC, this excellent new resource will help capture the instinct children and young people have for articulating their rights – and demonstrate how they can take action when their rights are not respected. Jackie Brock, Chief Executive of Children in Scotland