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Article 12

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 12, states that children should be allowed to express their views on things affecting them, and those views should be taken into account.

Article 12
1. States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.

Hi everyone, 

I am a 14 year old who thinks that we shouldn’t sit back and accept things we don’t like. When I was 8, I was in Hong Kong during three months of student protests for democracy and I spent a lot of time walking around their camps. Then when I was in Year 6 I lodged a complaint about having too much homework in my school.

In March 2019 I went to the School Strike for Climate Action. I had to do some research before I went the first time because my parents said I wasn’t allowed to go unless I really agreed with what the protesters wanted, and unless I wrote to my school principal explaining why I was going to miss school.

One of the things that made me want to do this was hearing the Prime Minister at the time say that kids should not protest and there should be ‘more learning and less activism in schools’.

This made me realise that there are lots of issues that are important to kids and that we should have our say. And that we have the right to have our say.

So I’ve set up this website to give kids some tools to have their say effectively. These tools work whether you are trying to change the world, or just trying to change something at school that you think is unfair.

On this website, I have some of the letters that my sister and I have written, and the responses that we got to show you some of the things that have worked (and haven’t worked) for us.

I am also interested in hearing from kids on what issues are important to them. We would like to tell grownups like politicians, who make decisions, what those issues are and what we would like the grownups to do.

From, Zari

P.S remember you can DM us on instagram or comment any of your experiences with activism, and I can even make a page on this site about it. Thanks!

16 replies on “Article 12”

Dear Zari,

I would like to say that what you have done was brilliant and brave, where these issues should and should have been voiced out. The grownups or even adults sometimes ignored the ideas or even the messages the young ones were trying to convey, and I would say that’s when ignorance came to the play. Adults should always have an open mind and listen to what the young ones have to say. If they don’t agree, they can always try to reason with them, until one of the parties accept the views of another party. There’s no much harm done if humans work in that way.

Keep up the great work and I can’t wait to see more of what you are currently working on. Take care!

Regards,
Your cousin,
Ivan

p/s: Send my regards to Yassine, Dad and Mum too 🙂

Hi Zari,
Chapeau! Great homepage, important issues, and a good idea to share tools to support and motivate like-minded activists. I live in the U.S. and I recently started volunteering at 350.org in Chicago. We work on divesting money from fossil fuels to renewable energy, but we network and collaborate with other environmental groups, one of the organizations I just learned about is Zero Hour, http://thisiszerohour.org/, check them out, they are also youth-led standing up to adults that don’t take climate change seriously.
Iris

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