Reading Time: 2 minutes Author: Dr. Marlies Kustatscher, University of Edinburgh While digital methods have been around for some time, the COVID-19 pandemic has required projects around the world to move to the digital sphere and adapt their approaches accordingly. In our new ¿Cuál es la verdad? project briefing, we reflect on our learning in relation to engaging digitally […]

Reading Time: 3 minutes Authors: Fiona Morrison, Máire McCormack and Kay Tisdall The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill marks a major milestone for children’s human rights in Scotland. The legislation is the result of hard and effective advocacy by children and young people and by members of civil society. It is the […]

Reading Time: 5 minutes Author: Thalia Thereza Assan The experiences and perspectives of children and young people are generally missing from coverage and discussions of the Covid-19 pandemic and its effects. This is not a unique situation, as children’s status in society positions them as a marginalised group. In this blog post, I will focus on what children and […]

Reading Time: 3 minutes Author: Dr. Carine Le Borgne, Senior Policy Adviser and It Takes a World Lead, World Vision UK Children and young people are active, competent social actors who can make decisions and influence their environments. For World Vision, it is vital to include children and young people in issues which affect them such as COVID-19. World […]

Reading Time: 3 minutes Author: Dr Patricio Cuevas-Parra In my professional experience in international development, I have observed that in large humanitarian disasters, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2006 war in Lebanon, the Haiti earthquake in 2010, and the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leona in 2014, children and young people’s participation rights have often been breached. […]

Reading Time: 4 minutes Author: Dr Alan Mackie It is a truism now that young people’s lives are deeply connected and interconnected with and by the digital sphere. Connectivity via mobile phones, laptops, tablets and computers is almost ubiquitous. The ongoing pandemic has brought into sharp focus the inequalities – not only in young people’s access to information and […]

Reading Time: 3 minutes The Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament have just issued their Stage 1 Report on the Children (Scotland) Bill. The Bill will reform family law in Scotland, and particularly promises to improve the participation rights of children within family law proceedings. While the Committee approved of this promise, it felt substantial changes and additions were needed to achieve this. We agree.

Reading Time: 4 minutes Climate justice is a concept that prioritises the theories and politics of social justice in debates over climate action. As such, it is an increasingly ubiquitous concept in policy and activist discourse worldwide, including Scotland. Despite this, it remains an underdeveloped and poorly grasped concept in Scottish education. Yet Scotland has an internationally unique sustainability education approach termed Learning for Sustainability (LfS), which requires that all learners should have an entitlement to learning for sustainability and that all teachers and education professionals address Learning for Sustainability in their practice.

Reading Time: 3 minutes Research has shown that 9 out of 10 countries with the highest child marriage rates are fragile or extremely fragile states. In countries like Afghanistan and Bangladesh (Cox’s Bazar), child marriage is illegal – but all too often these laws are not implemented, particularly in places where children have been displaced.

Reading Time: 3 minutes We are all trying our best to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, be it from governments seeking to protect public health and livelihoods, to key workers trying to ensure essential services are maintained, to many of us trying to maintain social distancing and self-isolating as individuals and for our families. But in the immediacy of responding to the crisis, adults can focus on protection and overlook the part children can and do play in the fightback to the crisis.