The Child Rights Working Group Is Formulating the 2008 Spring Conference on “The Child Right to Participation” in early April.
Please contact us at if you would like to help out or have any questions.
“Child Rights Week 2008”
March 31 – April 4
The Child Right to Participation
A week-long series of multi-disciplinary events focusing on the Child Right to Participation.
Please Register for each event you would like to attend via the links below. Open to all.
Monday, March 31
Child Participation 101 register
Inter-active participatory workshop on the Child Right to Participation with:
Roger Hart: Co-Director of Children's Environments Research Group, Graduate Center, CUNY; Professor in the Environmental Psychology Program; and Author of Children's Participation: From Tokenism to Citizenship and Undesigning For Children: Creating Space for Free Play and Informal Learning in Community Gardens.
Ravi Karkara: Child Participation Specialist at the Adolescent
Development and Participation unit, UNICEF, formerly with Save the Children Sweden as Regional Programme Manager for South and Central Asia.
Time: 3:00 – 6:00pm: Monday, March 31
Location: Lerner Hall – Broadway Room
~ Refreshments Provided ~
Tuesday, April 1
Realizing Children's Participation Rights: Participatory Action Research with Children register
Professor Mike Wessells: Senior Child Protection Specialist for Christian Children’s Fund; Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia; and Co-Chair of U. N. Task Force on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings.
Time: 1:00 –3:00 pm: Tuesday, April 1
Location: Lerner Hall - East Ramp Lounge
~ Refreshments Provided ~
Child Rights Week – “Children’s Participation in the Media” register
Neha Bhandari: is the author of many child-friendly reports, including, “Act Support and Protect” and “Global Capacity Building Workshop on Community and Child Centred Advocacy for Ending Violence against Children”
Time: 6:00 – 8:00pm: Tuesday, April
Location: Lerner Hall – Room 569
~ Refreshments Provided ~
Wednesday, April 2
Committee on the Rights of the Child: General Comment on Article 12 register (CUID required)
Preview presentation on the yet un-released Committee on the Rights of the Child General Comment on Article 12 and Child Participation More information
Victor Karunan: Chief of the Adolescent Development and Participation (ADAP) unit at UNICEF.
Time: 5:00 - 7:00pm: Wednesday, April 2
Location: Lerner, Room 555
~ Refreshments Provided ~
Miramax Films Screening of Tstosi register
Time: 8:30 - 10:30pm: Wednesday April 2
Location: Lerner Hall, Roone Arledge Cinema
Thursday, April 3
Representing Adolescents: Child Participation in Practice register
Discussion with law students currently representing clients in collateral issues relating to their aging out of foster care or other institutional settings. They will discuss the advantages and challenges of youth clients participating in decision-making about their cases as well as participatingin specific proceedings affecting them. The law students are practicing as a part of the Child Advocacy Clinic at Columbia Law School
Introduced by Professor Jane Spinak: Director of the Child Advocacy Clinic at Columbia Law School
Time: 5:00 – 6:30pm Thursday, April 3
Location: Jerome Green Annex, 1st floor – (near East Campus, between Faculty House and behind the Law School)
~ Refreshments Provided ~
Friday, April 4
Conference “The Child Right to Participation: Ethical Challenges” register
Time: 10:30 am – 6:00 pm
Location: Columbia Law School, Room 103
Check-In and Pick-up of materials
10:30 am
Refreshments Provided
Panel 1: Child Right to Participation in the Legal System
11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Panel Moderator:Jane Spinak: Co-founder of the Child Advocacy Clinic at Columbia Law School and chair of the board of the Center for Family Representation.
Panelists: Renee Mittler : Law Guardian, LegalAid; Lisa Gitelson: Supervisor, Administration for Children Services; Jacqueline Deane: Children's Rights Clinic, NYU and LegalAid; Shante Martin, Coordinator of Red Hook Youth Court
~ Lunch Break 12:30 – 1:20pm ~
Panel 2: Child Right to Participation in Education Systems
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm
Panel Moderator: Ravi Karkara , Child Participation Specialist at the Adolescent Development and Participation unit, UNICEF, formerly with Save the Children Sweden as Regional Programme Manager for South and Central Asia.
Panelists: Colette Daiute, Professor, Graduate Center, CUNY and Editor of International Perspectives on Youth Conflict and Development; Katherine Covell, Executive Director of the Cape Breton University Children's Rights Centre; John Santelli, Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health; Gertrud Lenzer, Professor of Sociology and Children’s Studies and Director of the Children’s Studies Program and Center, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, CUNY
Break-Out Sessions with Panelists
2:40pm – 3:15pm
~ Break with Coffee, Tea and Cookies 3:15 – 3:30 pm ~
Panel 3:
Beyond the Classroom: Child Right to Participation and Civic Engagement
3:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Panel Moderator: Robert Fullilove, Associate Dean for Community and Minority Affairs and Associate Professor of Clinical Public Health in Sociomedical Sciences
Panelists: Brian Howe : Director of the Cape Breton University Children's Rights Centre; Cecile Mazzacurati, UNFPA Crisis Prevention ; Pedro Noguera Professor in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at NYU and Executive Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education.
Break-Out Sessions with Panelists
4:30 pm – 5:15 pm
~ Reception 5:15 – 6:00 pm ~
Co-Sponsors
The President’s and Provost’s Student Event Fund; Human Rights Working Group (SIPA), Center for the Study of Human Rights, Human Rights Institute (Law), Public Interest Law Group, Amnesty International at Columbia, Program on Forced Migration and Health (Mailman); Rotaract Club (Law)