The project “Being a Child in Times of Crisis: Views, Experiences and the Child’s Right to Participation“, funded by the Open Innovation in Science (OIS) Center and carried out by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights (LBI-GMR) and Human Rights Space, aims to raise awareness among children and young people on the topic of children’s rights. This was achieved primarily through a three-part series of child- and youth-oriented workshops with participants from OMSi Glasergase, VBS Hamerlingplatz and BAfEP10.

Until these workshops, the participating children and young people had not yet had any contact with each other. However, this changed with the introductory meeting on Wednesday, 25 October 2023, at the Vienna Directorate of Education. At this event, the children and young people had the opportunity to continue working on the action plans they had already started in the previous workshops.

Additionally, other young people and young adults, who are already committed to their rights, were invited as “participation experts”. These experts were representatives of the Federal Student Council, activists from the Vorlaut collective, activists from Fridays for Future and the Youth Ambassador for UN Children’s Rights and SDGs. The children and young people from the project had the opportunity to ask the experts why they stand up for their (children’s) rights and how they came to do so. They were also able to get support and ideas for the further development of their action plans. The event was moderated by children’s rights expert Elisabeth Schaffelhofer-Garcia Marquez. Petra Plicka also recorded the event and, in particular, the working groups with drawing protocols.

The children and young people are putting the finishing touches to their action plans with the support of their teachers and are considering various formats for how they would like to present these plans at the project completion ceremony on Monday, 20 November 2023, at the Vienna Directorate of Education.