Children will confront leaders in Belmopan
Children’s rights have been a central issue for the United Nations Children’s Fund and UNICEF has facilitated a number of successful events to demonstrate that commitment. On Friday, twenty one high school students from around the country will be facing ministers of government at the National Assembly in Belmopan for the “Keeping the Promise” children’s forum. Sandra Hall, UNICEF’s operations manager, says that the youths of Belize will have a lot more issues to discuss since they first voted for the rights of the child in 1998.
Sandra Hall, Operations Manager, UNICEF
“In 1996 we had the Caribbean conference on the rights of the child, which was sponsored by the Government of Belize, UNICEF and CARICOM. Coming out of that conference was a Children’s Advisory Committee to UNICEF, which started in 1997. Since then these children have organised major events in Belize to bring attention to the rights of the child. In 1998 one of their big forum was the children’s election. They decided to do the children’s elections because it was the year of the national elections in Belize. They wanted to get the attention of those party’s contesting the elections, to get them to commit to do programmes and make policies in the best interest of the Belizean children if they became the government.”
Kevin Forrester, Facilitator, Keeping the Promise
“It’s one thing to sit-down and talk about the problem and it’s another thing to bring about the policies, but not just to bring about them but to implement them. For example, the curfew issue came up. It was being implemented initially, but after a while I haven’t seen much of that lately; maybe it’s still on. But what we want to say it’s all about putting children first.”
Marleni Cuellar, Panellist, Keeping the Promise
“Well hopefully we commit the leaders to a plan of action so later on we have a document to show them that you sign to doing this, doing that and all of these will come up from the suggestions that will be brought forward at this forum.”
Jose Sanchez
“What will be your contribution to the forum?”
Marleni Cuellar
“Well I hope to bring up a lot of topics. As a youth I can see many things that aren’t being done in Belize right now. I would love to go out there and tell these people that have the capacity of actually doing something about the situation of Belize right now, what they should be looking at, what they should be doing and what they need to pay more attention to.”
The forum will take place from 10:00 a.m. to noon on Friday. Hall says that UNICEF hopes that it will result in a firm commitment for a plan of action that can contribute towards the ideal of a World Fit for Children in Belize.
