In 2019, the Global Campus (GC) and the Right Livelihood (RL) entered into a long-term cooperation with the main purpose of enhancing children’s rights worldwide. The cooperation aims to realise this by strengthening the participation of children in all matters affecting their lives in the present and in the future. The GC has therefore committed to strengthening its education, research, training, network-building and advocacy for the rights of children, as stipulated in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other similar instruments. Its Vision and Mission Statement highlight this principle as a core element of the work the cooperation should deliver. It stresses that we should not only speak up for the rights of children but we should also stand with children as they speak for themselves – thereby suggesting that we should endeavour to facilitate the creation of platforms where children can meet each other, learn from each other, exchange ideas and promote their rights themselves.
In the summer of 2023, with the support of the Global Campus and the Right Livelihood Foundation, the Global Campus South East Europe (GCSEE) formed its own Child Leadership Team in cooperation with its regional partner organisations from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, Naša Djeca Sarajevo (Our Children Sarajevo), Mreža organizacija za decu Srbije (The Network of Organizations for Children of Serbia), respectively. The regional CLT gathers over 30 children from BiH and Serbia from the ages of 12 to 17 and plans to expand to other areas of the region in the future. The members of the CLT SEE are a valuable consulting and leading body on all children’s rights-related issues, projects, ideas, and activities.
The CLT SEE is led and coordinated by the Children’s Rights Regional Officer for SEE, Pašić Nejira.