Completion & Evaluation   May 09 - May 27 / 2016     Completion: On Monday morning May 9th the final phase starts. Until Friday May 27th there's time to work on your group assignment for the Completion.  We are all curious about your letter and your 'eye-openers'.   Evaluation: In these last weeks of the Learning Circles we like to receive your feedback and learn how you experienced working together in this 'global classroom’.   What went really well and how can we grow stronger? Your tips and tops are helpful to improve our Learning Circles and make the next even more successful.

 

 

1. Completion 
Group assignment - A letter to the jury of GTP:

 

Introduction:

On November 20th 2014 the World celebrated the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Almost all countries (196) have ratified this international treaty that recognizes the human rights of children everywhere.

 

By taking part in the Learning Circle you have created and seen a lot of information about the present 54 children's rights and how the world is dealing with it. In the past months you probably found out that 'we' still don't meet up to the rights of children. Many children are victims of failure to fulfill a promise.

Maybe it helps if we think together, if we design a different plan, with a different approach.

It's time for ideas that no one considered!

 

The assignment:

In collaboration with UNICEF we as GTP have launched a 'writing contest' that allows you as LC-participants to speak out and raise your voice.
 

We ask you to write a paper (about 500 words) to the jury of GTP in which you include:

• A brief class introduction, so the jury understands who you are as a class and where you're from.

• Your lessons learned and eye-openers during the Learning Circle process.

• Design a plan to improve at least one children's right.

How can your plan improve the conditions in the lives of children?

Describe what motivated your group or class to make this choice and why you think this specific plan deserves the attention of the jury.

 

The jury will share these letters with UNICEF and spread them (through various social media) among many students and teachers participating in various projects of GTP!

 

What is The Global Teenager Project (GTP)?

The Global Teenager Project connects students globally by sharing web based classroom challenges, contributions and discussions. 

The Learning Circles Children’s Rights improve intercultural understanding and increase awareness about the conditions in the lives of children worldwide. 

GTP wants to take away stereotypical images and preconceived ideas and gives way to a deeper understanding for different perspectives. 

 

Hereby our letters to Unicef:
YASMIN's letter

2 June 2016

UNICEF House

3 United Nations Plaza

New York, New York 10017

U.S.A.

 

Yasmin Abbass-Saal

De Meergronden

65 Marktgracht

1353 AL

Almere, Flevoland,

The Netherlands

 

Dear Unicef,

My name is Yasmin Aïsha Zeinab Abbass-Saal, I am 13 years old and I was born in England. I have English, Sudanese, Dutch, German, Polish, Jewish, Spanish and Belgian roots and I am extremely proud to be a world citizen. I attend a Dutch high school the ”Meergronden”, and I am currently attending class V1p. I study the bilingual program VWO+ and for one of my courses I take part in the Global Teenager Project (GTP). GTP has helped me realise how privileged we are in the Netherlands in relation to people in less fortunate surroundings.

I also learned quite how many children's rights there are, and sadly,  how many children's rights goals are not yet achieved. There is a lot of work to be still done and I am excited to take part in this project. For our final assignment, I am offered the chance to write a letter of recommendation to Unicef with the purpose of enhancing one of the children rights.

I have chosen Article 2: Children must be protected from discrimination. A few weeks ago my mum and I went to Speaker's Night in the beautiful new library in Almere City Centre. One of the speaker's was George Arakel.

George told about his childhood, how he arrived as a refugee child hidden in the darkness of a truck; afraid. He told how he was attacked by neonazi's on the school yeard and how he remembers the head of the school and 2 teachers watching on through the window without coming to his rescue and without calling the police. (See https://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxh0PLJJs1A the whole speech). It is a shocking account, but not much different from the way my mother grew up in Germany, also with a daily threat of being severely injured and killed due to one's heritage, colour of skin etc. To people who have not been victim of racial and other types of discrimination this may sound like a severe example but that doesn't mean smaller incidents don't hurt just as much. In the Dutch media there are currently more and more examples that the daily remarks, the daily reality of being excluded and insulted also cause mental damage (The Speakers Night performance I attended was in Dutch, so I have put one of the Tedx video links from the same speaker here :)). To stop discrimination, I would recommend to take an immediate first step: All children, no matter where they grow up, need to see images and positive role models with more than one skin tone; with more than one religion; more than one (dis)ability: From living in the UK I know that this rule is strictly monitored, all schools are obliged to display images of diversity. So why most school in the Netherlands are not aware of their responsibility in this area is a riddle to me. Dear Unicef, I would love to assist in starting a campaign that from now on in all schools of the Netherlands (world) there should be images and play and teaching materials, which reflect the cultural and religious identity of people from all over the world. The reason I put 'world' in brackets is because I think it should happen worldwide, but I also think we should start “in our own backyard”, in our country- because who are we to advise the world if we have not addressed the issues here?

All children should have a chance of meeting potential role models related to their own and other students culture and religion; in person and via books and films: The media,

“Jeugdjournal” etc. can make a big difference in helping children to be proud of their heritage, no matter where they lie. So they know not just Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber, but also some other cool artists that have their roots outside the European border.

Competitions and Awards could stimulate knowledge over the word, for instance, every child leaving school should know the name of at least one African visual artist, one chinese musician; one native American scientist etc. Nowadays I think many teachers could not even pass such a test. Also I believe that actually knowing someone in person will make a

difference and reduce fear and stigma. Therefore I recommend encouraging exchange projects with schools and refugee camps or community organisations from their local neighbourhood to learn from one another.

Cultural and religious holidays from all over the world should be taught and celebrated: No, I do not mean a free day for every religious or cultural holiday, because then we would probably only go to school twice a year. A lot of learning is connected to learning about different traditions. To recognise the equal worth of celebrations children should be able to

celebrate Chinese new year and not just Pentacost, Eid (Tobaski) and Divali could be connected to our autumn holidays and Holi to our May holidays.

The history of the Netherlands should be taught from different perspectives:

I think far too little has been taught about the perspective of formerly oppressed people, like Native Americans, Suriname etc. Unfortunately many children do not know a lot about the slave trade, apartheid and how it is connected to the Dutch history. Students should be encouraged to become aware of different forms of discrimination and their consequences:

I think that a lot of people who discriminate, especially younger people are not even aware that they are discriminating and that they are causing others unnecessary pain. Schools should take their duty to protect their students a lot more seriously and not allow racist jokes, ex: calling a Moroccan-Dutch Student “little terrorist”. I have moved throughout continents, I have attended six schools in the last nine years and have left two of them due to being excluded. I feel like my school did not take their role seriously enough to try and stop it. Some teachers didn't care, and some played just as big of a role in me leaving. Fortunately my parents did support me all the way and took my feelings serious.

In any case, I think that the school should do some kind of training to learn how to better protect the children and prevent discrimination from happening in the first place. As I said I speak from experience, and I would never want anyone to go through feeling unseen and excluded or worse.

Unicef should check frequently if the schools are actually taking discrimination seriously to protect their students: I think that just taking the schools word for it, won't get you anywhere. Just like with Bilingual Education inspection, there should be some sort of inspection on this. Maybe by having one-on-one interviews with children or somewhere students can give anonymous feedback? I think that if discrimination is reduced, multi-coloured children would have a lot more confidence, and would feel like their rights are upheld.

I really hope you like my letter of reasoning and arguments, and I hope you consider doing something with it :).

Sincerely yours,

Yasmin Abbass-Saal

LOTTE's letter:

Lotte Meiresonne

De Meergronden

Marktgracht 65

1353 AL Almere

The Netherlands

United States Fund for UNICEF

125 Maiden Lane, 11th Floor

New York, NY 10038

June 1st, 2016

Dear Unicef,

Are you also worrying about the wars and misunderstandings in this world? Me either! I am

sending you this letter, because we can improve two children’s rights to get rid of this problem:

Article 13: The child’s right to freedom of expression.

Article 14: The child’s right to freedom of thought.

As you may know, these rights aren’t wonted in all the countries in the world. The right to freedom

of expression and the right to freedom of thought are very important in a humans childhood: they

make you the person who you are or will be in the future. By improving these rights, children (the

future population) will learn to talk with respect and learn to understand their co- world citizens. In

the future this skill will prevent conflicts and wars.

Fortunately, a lot of children in the world have the right to education (art. 28) and can go to school.

But, what good is all that knowledge if you don’t have the skill to discuss and talk with respect?

That is why we should add a new required subject at school for all the children who have the

possibility to go to school: philosophy. In this philosophy class, you have the possibility to talk

about yourself, religion, life, and happenings. That is how you improve your skill to talk and discuss

with respect.

Unfortunately, there there are some regions in the world where children do not have the possibility

to go to school. In these regions, there mostly is a lot of incomprehension and frustration, and

especially in these countries, it is even more important for children to develop the skill to discuss

and express themselves.

In this case, there have to be locations were children can follow (if needed protected) philosophy

classes for free and voluntarily. Philosophy teachers visit areas of great conflict (think of small waraffected

villages). They organize lessons or meetings for children where they can talk and express

their feelings and idea’s.

I am fully convinced, that if UNICEF pays more attention to these two articles and solutions, we

can prevent future world wars and fights caused by the grown up children’s from now.

Kind regards,

Lotte Meiresonne

 

BJARNE's LETTER

Grasmeent 47
Almere Haven, 1357 JE
The Netherlands

3 United Nations Plaza,
New York, NY 10017,
United States

Dear Unicef,


My name is Lennart I live in Almere Haven in the Netherlands (Almere Harbour), my family is Dutch but I have far, far away in my family also some indies blood. Learn at the Meergronden (Lakegrounds) the best school of Almere. My class is named V1P (we are the VIP group of the school ;}) and it’s the best class I ever had, its one big group and we are all friends. It’s very nice at school I have good marks and I like the big pause from 40 minutes and PE (physical education). I also have some Hobby’s like field Hockey and running I also do sometimes a mini triathlon. I won the price for the best schooler (the best who doesn’t do triathlon as sport).

I learned a lot about children’s rights in Nepal, that they have to work there and that girls even could be sold as slave for money, so the family could eat. I feel really spoiled after that documentary about Urmila and the Calamari because I don’t have to work for money in really bad situations. If I want to work so I have some money for myself I can choose but they have to work for money to get food for one day. It’s is not fair that I have a big warm house with a good roof and they have little “container houses.”

my plan to improve this article
☏ Article 17: The child's right to information from national and international mass media.
child´s in countries like China and North Korea have no social media so they don´t know anything about the world except for the things the government says. My idea is that we make Wi-Fi or social media every were possible which cannot be blocked by governments at all.(I never look on social media only if I don’t know how to install something.) The children will then know what happens in the world and they can have their own opinion about what they find of other country´s or their own country everyone is happy right? (I know it is not so simple as I say but I have to say something right? If everything would be so simple no one will have any problems.)

this was my letter. If you want to send me a mail back this is my email:
lennartkindt@gmail.com I
worked very hard on this letter, so I hope you had fun with reading

Greetings Lennart Kindt
KIRI's letter:

The Netherlands, Chagallweg 74

Kiri Blommaart

Osg de Meergronden

Marktgracht 65

1353 Al Almere

 

Almere 18th of may

Dear Unicef,

We are the class; V1P from the school the Meergronden. We are with 21 people and we are with 7 boys and 14 girls. We are all between 12 and 13 years and we are in the first grade of secondary school. Some of the people are Egyptian, Irish, Surinamese, French, Indonesian , German and of course Dutch. We all like social-media. Almost everyone has instagram, snapchat and YouTube and everyone goes to school with the bicycle, the bus or with the car.  I learned a lot About children rights and I still don’t get how people can rape, sell and abuse these children without having guilt feelings or that they just can’t stop. I learned the main children rights and that we in the Netherlands have a very, very luxe Life. Now I have more respect how I live here. I think it’s very bad what happens in the world and I hope that one day all the children can have their rights and that they all can grow up like I do.  But then we all have to help fighting for the children rights and we have to find solutions that really work.  I have a solution for the rights that a child needs healthcare. I think we have to make apart children hospitals in Africa and Asia with smaller prices because a lot of hospitals are over full and there can’t come extra people in it. There are a lot of people who don’t go to the hospital because they are to poor and that’s why we have to decrease the costs for the hospital in the poor countries and maybe we have to increase the costs in the hospitals in the rich countries like North- America and Europa. Because I think the people in the rich countries have to give up more things to have less poverty and better healthcare in the poor countries. I hope this can help and I hope the health care from the children will be fine soon and every child can have good healthcare.

Kind regards, Kiri Blommaart

To: Unicef, 3 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017, United states 
TOM's LETTER:

Tom Egbertsen

Meergronden

Markergracht 65

1353AL Almere

 

United States Fund for UNICEF

125 Maiden Lane, 11th Floor

New York, NY 10038

 

Almere, 29 May 2016

 

Subject: Children rights

 

Dear Unicef,

 

The previous weeks our class (V1P) from Almere, in the Netherlands, worked on the Global Teenager Project, I really liked that.

 

We’ve talked about children rights and child labour. I’ve learned a lot about the differences between children that live in less developed countries and children that live in the Netherlands. We can go to school full days and they have to work or live in a warzone. We saw that small girls were sold to people that used them as slaves. I thought that was really sad.

 

Now we have the exercise to come up with an idea to improve one of the rights. I chose Article 31 (Leisure, play and culture). In a lot of countries children haven’t got a playground, because there isn’t enough money for that. In my own city there are ‘Cruijff Courts’ financed by the Johan Cruijff Foundation. Those are playgrounds were a lot of children play. You can play soccer, basketball or tennis there. The result is that the children are really happy and there are less fights on the streets. I would like that more children have playgrounds near their home.

 

My idea to improve that is the following: a cooperation between Unicef and as much as possible countries. It works like this: every time the government of a country invests money in a project (for example a road or a public building), 0.1% of the amount of money goes to Unicef. Then Unicef can make a playground or investigate in a community center for cultural activities. A small example: if a company builds a building for 16 million dollars, then 0,1% goes to Unicef. That is $16.000! From that money all children can enjoy their free time.

 

I hope that Unicef likes the idea, or a part of it, and finds some countries that want to participate.

 

My wish that in the in the future more children can enjoy a playground or can go to an Community Center to be creative or play an instrument.

 

Best regards,

Tom Egbertsen

 

EVA's LETTER:

Eva Tigelaar

OSG de meergronden

1353 AL

Almere

 

United states / Unicef

125 Maiden Lane, 11th Floor

New York,

NY 10038

 

Dear Unicef,

I am Eva Tigelaar. I am 13 years old and I live in the Netherlands.At Europian International Oriantation we have a project about children rights and I learned so  much of that project.It was a nice project to do. Our class learned about Urmilla Chaudhary, how children live in other countrys, and ofcourse about children rights itself.

Children have the right:Article 13: Children have the right to play and relax, and to join activities.Not every child have that right, because maybe the family needs money, so also the children have to work. In a lot of countries, they have to work for his family, or a landlord on the land to get food and drink because the family doesn’t have money for that and that is not good, children have to play with their friends, and go to school but in some countries they have to work and that is not good. I think that Europe have to give poor countries money, but not the government because most of the time they didn’t do something good with the money. Just give that money to the poor people, because if you do that, some children did not have to work anymore.

 

 

Kind Regards,

Eva Tigelaar

 

 

 DAAN's LETTER:

Marktgracht 65
1353 AL Almere

Daan van den Bosch
 

Unicef States Fund for UNICEF

125 Maiden Lane, 11^th floor

New York, NY 10038
Almere, 2^th of June 2016,

Dear GTP,

I am Daan van den Bosch my class is V1P I live in Almere in Holland and with our class and teacher Alessia (Lombardi) do we the Global Teenager Project and I/(We) have  learned a lot about slavery and education in Nepal and that children rights have a big impact on your live,   cause the children in Nepal don’t have lots of children rights there such as article nine: The child's right not be separated from his or her parents against the child's will or article thirteen: The child's right to freedom of expression. Or article fourteen: The child's right to freedom of thought. It is strange that the education in a land is so bad. Even the children had to work in Nepal and don’t go to school, but in article twenty-eight says: The child's right to education.

The exercise was to make one of those articles better, but I don’t think you can do that. Those articles are good but not everywhere, but if you try and it won’t work is it okay but if you don’t work hard enough maybe you can do more but I don’t know how that work, that is your business.

 

Gr. Daan van den Bosch

 

PS. I would like it if you answer my letter or the letter of someone else out my class.

 

 

 

Jeanaira van Heyningen

Almere

Meergronden, Marktgracht 65. 1353 AL

Unicef 

125 Maidenlane, 11^th floor, New york, NY 10038

 

Dear Unicef,

 

My name is Jeanaira van Heyningen, and I live in The Netherlands in Almere. I'm in high school called 'De Meergronden'. The name of my class is V1P and me andmyclassmatesare participating in yourchildren's right project. I learned a lot fromitand I feel reallyspoiled. Because in Nepal thechildren have towork at such a youngage. And in The Netherlands we canonlyworkifwe're 13 years or older. And we have a minimum wagethatthey have topayus. And we canonlyworkfor a certainamount of time. I really have respect forthoselittlekids in Nepal. Somewhere I have a feeling thatit'spartly me fault. Because I get alot of thingsthat I actuallydontneed, but I justbuythembecause I want them. In Nepal theycan't even buythingsthattheyreallyneed. Soif I actuallystoppedbuyingthingsthat are irrelevent. I couldmaybe help somepeople in Nepal whoneedthingthatactually are relevant. UrmilaChaudhary is a really brave women. I really respect her, I believethatshe is anexampletoalot of womenaroundtheworld. I reallylikedthe project and I thinkthatit is a verygood way to open childrenseyes. Becausesome of thekids are thatspoiledthattheydidn'teven knowthatthis is happening in theworld, andit is very important toknowthis. I alsowantedtoemphasize a childrens right. Which is thatallthechildrens have the right toraisetheirvoices without consequences. In alot of countries, kids have nothingto say. I thinkthis is one of the most important childrenrights. Becauseifpeople listen tokids, thekidsalsowill have a feeling thatthey are heared. AndI'msurethatthatwillgivethem more selfconfidence, whatcanalsodecreasealot of bad thingssuch as bullying. Andifnobodywould listen to me I would feel veryunimportant. And I have a really smart ideatoimprovethat. We can put that in thelawandifthepoeplebreak thatrulethey have to go in jail.. I thinkthat Unicef reallycan make a big difference, becausethey have a greatinfluence on the world. 

JEANAIRA's LETTER

Jeanaira van Heyningen

Almere

Meergronden, Marktgracht 65. 1353 AL

Unicef 

125 Maidenlane, 11^th floor, New york, NY 10038

 

Dear Unicef,

 

My name is Jeanaira van Heyningen, and I live in The Netherlands in Almere. I'm in high school called 'De Meergronden'. The name of my class is V1P and me andmyclassmatesare participating in yourchildren's right project. I learned a lot fromitand I feel reallyspoiled. Because in Nepal thechildren have towork at such a youngage. And in The Netherlands we canonlyworkifwe're 13 years or older. And we have a minimum wagethatthey have topayus. And we canonlyworkfor a certainamount of time. I really have respect forthoselittlekids in Nepal. Somewhere I have a feeling thatit'spartly me fault. Because I get alot of thingsthat I actuallydontneed, but I justbuythembecause I want them. In Nepal theycan't even buythingsthattheyreallyneed. Soif I actuallystoppedbuyingthingsthat are irrelevent. I couldmaybe help somepeople in Nepal whoneedthingthatactually are relevant. UrmilaChaudhary is a really brave women. I really respect her, I believethatshe is anexampletoalot of womenaroundtheworld. I reallylikedthe project and I thinkthatit is a verygood way to open childrenseyes. Becausesome of thekids are thatspoiledthattheydidn'teven knowthatthis is happening in theworld, andit is very important toknowthis. I alsowantedtoemphasize a childrens right. Which is thatallthechildrens have the right toraisetheirvoices without consequences. In alot of countries, kids have nothingto say. I thinkthis is one of the most important childrenrights. Becauseifpeople listen tokids, thekidsalsowill have a feeling thatthey are heared. AndI'msurethatthatwillgivethem more selfconfidence, whatcanalsodecreasealot of bad thingssuch as bullying. Andifnobodywould listen to me I would feel veryunimportant. And I have a really smart ideatoimprovethat. We can put that in thelawandifthepoeplebreak thatrulethey have to go in jail.. I thinkthat Unicef reallycan make a big difference, becausethey have a greatinfluence on the world. 

 

 

AREND's LETTER:

Arend Stam

OSG De Meergronden

Netherlands, Flevoland, Almere Haven, Marktgracht 65

United States, New York, 125 Maiden Ln.

26-5-2016

Dear Unicef,

My name is Arend and I’m thirteen years old, I’m from the Netherlands which is a country in Europe and my school is De Meergronden, which is in the city Almere Haven. It is located in Almere. My class, V1P, have a project where I have worked on that is called: ‘The Learning Circle Project.’ I learned many things from the Learning Circle Process just like these several things: I learned how to write a perfect, important letter to many peoples who lives in another country, and I learned about the country Nepal and how it is going in that country.

How I designed a plan to improve at least one children’s right is by brainstroming about several needed rights we have here and comparing the rights with the other one where the children’s in poor country’s don’t have the good needed rights. The rights that we have here are needed in all country’s  in the whole world. The laws in the country’s need to be fair and strict. All the childrens are needing a good way to life and health care. In many country’s there is also discrimination on childrens and there needs to be a way to don’t let it go. Education is one of the most important thing because in some poor country’s many children don’t have the right for education and the way to learn. My opinion is that everyone needs to have the rights for education and they way to learn because our country and most of other several country’s have also the right to learn and have education. My plan is to make a table with our country on the left and the other poor country’s that don’t have the good needed rights. I am going to pick some important rights for childrens and compare them in the table.

To improve the conditions in the lives of many childrens we need many things because there are many children that don’t have all the right conditions. All childs need good water and food, medicines, soap to wash their hands, bed stuff so that they can sleep well, clothes and shoes, electricity for lamps and lights and a place where they can live at a normal way. Because there are too many children it is difficult to bring all those stuff to them. There needs to be much money to buy all those things, but I can not do it on my own. People all around the world can donate 5 dollar per person. They can donate more if they want so that Unicef can buy all those things and give it to the childrens that needs it. They all need plenty water and enough food, and if they can they can make their own farm toe at everyday and there needs to be a crane with drinkable water in it. They also need medicines if they are sick. This is the most of it that I can think of it.

Best regards,

Arend

ANNES LETTER:

125 Maiden Ln

New York
Annes Negmel-Din

Meergronden
Marktgracht 65
1353AL Almere

 

 

 

Dear, Unicef           

 

I am Annes Negmel-Din from the class V1P. I am from the school  OSG De Meergronden. That is located in Almere-Haven, in Flevoland. I’m 13 years old and live in the country named, The Netherlands, right beside England and above Belgium. At the Meergronden in the EIO class I learned about something called “Learning circle project”. At the lessons where we are learning about the Learning  Circle, we  get thought about the status in Nepal, about the children that get abused there, and what they do. We also learned about that children had to work there at a young age, and didn’t had any rights. We also wrote a letter to a girl in Nepal. She was a kamalari, and worked hard, with not that much food . I’m here to talk about the Article 2 of the children’s rights. The Article says : “Children must be protected from discrimination.” I thought about it for a few seconds and knew that actually a lot of children don’t have the right to be protected from discrimination. A lot of children get discriminated, because of their skin colour and what religion they belong to. They don’t have the right to be protected, you can see this as bullying. I think this is really unfair compared to other children. There are multiple and various companies that go against discrimination in Europe, but still children get discriminated, which also leads to bullying children.

 

I really want to fix this generation of children that can ruin other children’s rights. The children that are the dupe of not being protected of discrimination are not feeling welcome in any place. Then the children want to change, and not be their self anymore. I want to stop this, I want to make a plan that helps out the children that are being discriminated and I also want the people that hurt the discriminated people, to be punished and know that they can not do that again. I brainstormed a lot about this and maybe found a system that can work. So the system goes as following. The child that does not get protected, obviously needs some kind of protection against wrong people . So if a child goes with no protection at all on the street,  and they get discriminated. They tell their parents or a older brother to come with then next time. If the people that discriminate him still are going on, the older person intervene and stops the child that discriminates him. The older person calls a local anti-discrimination company, that gets the bully’s parents phone number and aware them of the actions that their child’s have made. The children will be scared to do something bad again, because it can lead to very big problems for them/ the parents.

 

I hope this system will work and help out the children that have not that many rights.

 

 

Best regards

Annes Negmel-Din

MYRTHE's LETTER:

Myrthe Koopman

De Meergronden

Marktgracht 65

1353AL Almere

 

125 Maiden Lane

NY 10038

Unicef

New York

 

Almere, 2^th of June 2016

 

Dear Unicef,

 

I am Myrthe and I am 13 years old. We are with 21 people in class and everyone is between 12 and 13 years old. We are not just blonde and from Holland. We are in class with people with different cultures, for example: France and Egypt.

Ofcourse I don’t know everything about children rights, but I learned a lot about it, for example: about the child labour in Nepal. I really like Unicef, because it is about helping children and giving them a better life and it’s awesome what you guys can do to make a child live happily ever after.

Ofcourse we can improve things. I guess we can stop that children under 15 has to work in armies (part 1, article 38)

(website: http://unchildrights.blogspot.nl/2009/03/summary-childrens-rights-convention.html), because you see in a lot of places in the world, for example: Afghanistan and Africa, there are a lot of child soldiers.

Children have to fight in a war.

You see that Unicef does a lot for children, but you see that Unicef does more with education and hunger, but less with children soldiers and I think we can improve that. I guess we can make an charity to raise money fort he children. Not just collecting money, but maybe a marathon (dancing, swimming etc.) or sell clothing (T- shirts) for example. For children who fought in a war, they can have a trauma and to raise money with an action we can help them.

We can eat every day a piece of cake and they eat so a few and get not paid. I guess a lot of people can help all the children who have to fight in a war to give them a good future. When the children have a good future and they live well and when they are grown up, they can make the world better. Every single person in the world can think of that.

 

Regards, Myrthe…

 

P.S. I hope you can help a lot of more children. Your work is so good. :)

 

 JON's LETTER:

Jon Lacroix, V1P

OSG De Meergronden

Marktgracht 65

1353 AL Almere

 

UNICEF 
125 Maiden Lane, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10038

 

Almere, June 2, 2016

 

Dear Sir, Madam,

First I would like to introduce myself. I am Jon Lacroix from De Meergronden in Almere (The Netherlands). I am 12 years old and I am in the first grade of the Meergronden (secondary school). One of my subjects in school is EIO (European International Orientation). During  two months we worked on a project about Children’s Rights. In the lessons we talked about Urmila Chaudhary, a former Kamalari and now a young human right activist. We watched short movies about Urmila Chaudhary and her ideas. We also talked about the life in a poor country and about the rights of children. And why it is important to have these rights all over the world.

After the lessons we got the assignment to design a plan to improve the living conditions for children and present this to Unicef.

I chose Article 31 and Article 32 of the Children’s Rights for my plan.

I think all the Children’s Rights are important but in the articles I choose, I think there is room for quick improvement.

In poor countries, children have to work at the family farm so that their parents earn enough money to live. The children have no time to play with their friends or have other spare time.

This is why I chose Article 31 (Leisure, Play and Culture): “Children have the right to relax and play, and to join in a wide range of cultural, artistic and other recreational activities.” And for Article 32 (The government should protect children from work that is dangerous or might harm their health or their education). “While the Convention protects children from harmful and exploitative work, there is nothing in it that prohibits parents from expecting their children to help out at home in ways that are safe and appropriate to their age. If children help out in a family farm or business, the tasks they do be safe and suited to their level of development and comply with national labour laws. Children's work should not jeopardize any of their other rights, including the right to education, or the right to relaxation.”

Children feel better with some spare time and if they can play with their friends after work their schoolwork will improve.

My plan is to explain this children’s right to people in farming communities. It is important to tell this in rural areas where children go to school and work at the family farm too.

I want to set up an information campaign in rural areas. Role models can tell people in communities that children that have time for school, work and relaxation, do better in school and have opportunities to a better future. And the earnings of the parents are not smaller but the future earnings of their children will be bigger so that their grandchildren don’t have to work on the farm any more. These role models should come from rural areas themselves. This plan can be used in every country where children have to work more than 2 hours a day.

 

I hope that you can do something with my idea. Maybe I can help you work out the details!

I look out for your answer.

Best regards,

 

 

Jon Lacroix

 

 

MORGANE's LETTER:

V1p Refuge project

Unicef

 

 

Morgane ter Cock

De Meergronden
Marktgracht 65
1353AL Almere

 

125 Maiden Lane, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10038

Unicef

United State

 

Almere, 1st of June 2016,

 

Dearest Unicef,

 

I am Morgane ter Cock. I am 12 years old and I live in the Netherlands. My school is “de Meergronden.” At school I am now busy with the refugee project. I am now communicating with children from all over the world to see and discover how their situation is. That is also the reason I am writing you this letter. In this letter I will show and explain your my plan to improve a children right.

The children right I wanted to improve was: “Article 31: The child's right to rest, leisure and recreational activities.” I do not think every child has this rights, because some children in warzones never have rest because they have to run for their lives. Every child has to have the right to play and to rest. If you are always living in a warzone or in a bad situation it will always be nice to rest and play a little so you can have fun.

I wanted to improve this right by twice in a year have one day for every child to play, feast, dance and even sing. This one day I would call “national fun day.” It will be held on the 4^th of May and on the 4^th of November. On this day every child, so also the ones in a refugee camp will be able to have fun and play. On this day there will also be given the possibility to do leisure activities and to rest and sleep. On this day the kids will not be reminded of their situation or their loss.

I hope that if this improvement will happen, that it will make a lot of children happy and that they will be more stable in life, with not only bad memories of their youth. In this project I learned a lot about children rights and what they are. I want to thank you for helping children from all over the world to have a good life and good rights. I have a lot of rights but the fact that you are making every kid equal makes me very happy. Unicef is a big organisation and I hope you will even grow bigger and that you will be able to help even more children next year and the year after that.

 

Best regards Morgane ter cock

 

KIM's LETTER:

Kim Gietermans

De Meergronden 

Marktgracht 65

1353 AL Almere

The Netherlands

To UNICEF

United States Fund for UNICEF 
125 Maiden Lane, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10038

 

Dear UNICEF,

 My name is Kim and I´m 13 years old, I live in Holland, it is nice in Holland. My school is the Meergronden. My class has 21 children and our class name is V1P. With EIO (European international orientation) we have a big project, that project includes writing a letter to UNICEF, so to you J. We have to write a lot letters but I like it though,  because maybe you will do something with it and that is cool. The only thing that I  do not like is that we don’t have enough time to finish all the things, so we have to write a lot in like one week and that is hard because we have a lot of homework too. That is my feedbackJ.

We already did a lot of things. We already wrote a letter to Urmila in Nepal about girls trade.  I was really shocked because of the girl trade. And it was very weird and emotional to hear stories of people who really experienced it. That  really opened my eyes.
we had to choose a children right and then think of something to improve it, so this is what I thought, here it is. I choose this right: Children have the right to play. I think this is  a very important right, because not every ( a lot of ) children have the right to play and when your little you need to have that! and most of the small children in really pour countries have to work and that isn’t good for their health and for their childhood is not nice too. So I thought maybe we can make more playgrounds. Here is my conclusion. People in richer countries have more money, so I thought maybe if every family (that wants) can give every month like 10 euro’s to the family they like, so you have like your own family you give money too. And then children don’t have to work that much. Or you just give them something they can play with. I think it would be cool. I hope you guys like my idea and do something with it!

Kind regards Kim Gietermans.


BJARNE's LETTER:

Bjarne Annema
The Netherlands
OSG De Meergronden
Markgracht 65, 1353AL Almere

02-06-2016

Unicef
New York, United States of America
125 Maiden Lane, NY 10038

Dear Unicef,
I am Bjarne Annema from The Netherlands. I am twelve years old. Her I am on the school that is called: "De Meergronden". This school is located in Almere. Her I am in the class V1P. At the moment we are doing a project, about children rights. That is why I am writing you this letter. I am also doing TTO, this means that we have 50 procent of the lessons in English and 50 procent in Dutch. This is very handy, so that I can communicate with for example you and the children that need help.

I learned that there are much people are much more poor and have it worser than me. It is very strange that people can do things like take people as slaves. And that for example abuse someone for nothing. At this moment I feel me very spoiled. But I can't do much to it, because it is very far away.

The right that I will improve is article 28. In this article stands that every child do have the right to go to the primary school. And that children also can go to a high school, so that they after that can study and get a job. This is one of the most important children rights on the world for me. But there are still around the 250 million childrens that are not going to school. This have to be changed, because of that I am going to make a plan, so that more people can go to school.

I've made a plan so that hopefully more people can going to school. Actually I've made all little plans so the education will be better. For example if you send a group of people from the university to a country where is no or a little education, than they can give lessons to that childs. And if much countries and much universities do this. Than there will be much more education. Not for everyone, but you still help some childs. And if every student bring old books in English and old study and workbooks with them, they can give them to the people over there. And younger childrens like me and my class and other children that are the same age can also help. For example that a group of five out of one class can lead a whole class in a developing country. We can than help with lessons in English, like grammar, vocabulary, read, speak, hear and all that kind of stuff. We can also give them for example PE lessons with simple stuff like a football, or with tennisrackets and that kind of stuff. And one of the simplest, but it always works is that we set up a way that we get money, so that we can donate you, so UNICEF. This can be a charity or some challenges for money. This are my ideas. I hope you can do something with it.

Best regards,
Bjarne Annema

 

 

 

2. Evaluation:

 

We like to receive your feedback and learn how you experienced working together in this 'global classroom’.

 

 

Please post your letter to the jury of GTP and your evaluation on your school page.

 

Good luck and thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now we’re at the end of this journey.

But you will continue

discovering,

telling

and listening to

each other's stories

about 

the rights of all children.

 

 

They are seen and heard,

far beyond this Learning Circle!