Learn More

by Donna L. Goodman
UNICEF

The new vision for children in the 21st century foresees a world where children survive and grow to their full human potential, capable of living a long and healthy life, with opportunities for learning, earning, and participating in social, cultural, and civic endeavors.

It is a world where children are seen and treated as citizens with valid claims on the attention and resources of society, as respected participants, and as people who hold and exercise rights at the same time as they learn to respect and uphold the rights of others.It is a world where children are seen and treated as citizens with valid claims on the attention and resources of society, as respected participants, and as people who hold and exercise rights at the same time as they learn to respect and uphold the rights of others.

Realizing this vision for children will require identifying and developing catalytic and creative interventions that build on positive values, cultural knowledge, and local initiatives, while challenging attitudes and practices that are detrimental to the rights and development of the child. It will also require strengthening existing partnerships and forging new ones that involve children and adolescents in planning, implementing, and monitoring programs and policies that affect their lives.

In many poor communities, children are unsung heroes in the fight against water-related illness. Simply by teaching families and friends to wash their hands, children can help reduce diarrhea cases in their neighborhoods by up to 40 percent. Children's improvement of school sanitation facilities has helped bring more girls into school. In poor communities across the world, children have been first in line to organize handwashing facilities, persuade parents and neighbors to build latrines, and demand better services from governments. They need immediate and urgent help to continue saving lives and improving living conditions in their communities and schools.

Taking Action: The Children's World Water Forum

The Second Children's World Water Forum (CWWF) in Mexico City in March 2006 was a solution-driven, international event designed to strengthen and build the capacity of grassroots youth networks. More than 100 children from 29 countries engaged in an interactive exchange of ideas, best practices, and lessons learned from 55 peer-led initiatives in water, environment, sanitation, and hygiene.

Child delegates drafted a "Call for Action" that was presented to 140 government ministers of water and environment. The Call for Action seeks national and sub-national support for the local actions of child leaders to mobilize their peers at home to improve water, environment, sanitation, and hygiene conditions at school and in the local community at large.

UNICEF supported the participation of 20 girls and boys -- all water, sanitation, and hygiene advocates from developing communities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These children brought powerful stories of hope from some of the world's poorest countries.

In 12-year-old Priscila Wanjiru Karanja's slum school in Kenya, 1,750 children share 12 toilets. Many of her friends cannot go to school because no toilets means no privacy - a particular problem for adolescent girls. Priscila is in charge of monitoring the cleanliness of the toilets and educating the community about good hygiene. She is so good at what she does that her school now has posters saying "OUR TOILETS ARE WORTH VISITING." Priscila wants to work in medicine or engineering when she grows up. She is afraid that poverty might stop her, but she has the intelligence and determination to achieve her dreams.

Thirteen-year-old Suresh Barel from Nepal is the chairperson of the School Sanitation Club in a highly traditional Nepalese mountain community. With his friends, he organizes fundraising activities for hygiene programs in his village - including an extraordinary micro-finance initiative that encourages poor farmers to take loans to build toilets. His club also provides inputs for the design and construction of child-friendly water and sanitation facilities for the school. This program has managed to raise the percentage of households with toilets from 35 percent three years ago to 95 percent today. Read more real life stories.