The 12th National Children’s Summit held at the Parliamentary Buildingon 7th December 2017 came up with 23 resolutions directed to government, parents and children themselves. All resolutions are closely related the Summit’s theme which is: “Positive Parenting: Foundation of the Rwanda we want.”
Children called on the government to exemplary punish all child rights violations perpetrators in order to bring an end to child abuse that results into sexual transmitted diseases, physical injuries, psychological damage, teenage pregnancy and domestic conflicts among others.
“We request the government to exemplary punish perpetrators of defilement as well as those who are responsible for child labor and school dropout. This should go hand in hand with compensation to victims”. You can read in the resolutions sheet.
Other resolutions directed to the government include the enforcement of laws punishing irresponsible parents who do not care for their children, increasing campaigns about positive parenting at all levels and ensuring that the rights for children with special needs are equally respected especially in schools where they are still facing some challenges related to inadequate infrastructure that are built in a way that do not allow them to freely access all corners of the school.
During the discussion within the Summit, Mr. Isaac Munyakazi, the Minister of State for Primary and Secondary Education, acknowledged that problem. He noted that new classrooms which are being built are taking the special needs for children with physical disability into due consideration. He also informed that there is a plan to introduce sign language into the national curriculum.
“The government of Rwanda is planning to publish a dictionary of Sign language that will be used as a curriculum in Rwandan schools to facilitate children’s with disability to smoothly undergo their studies and to communicate easily with their colleagues without disability.” He revealed
Through the resolutions directed to parents and teachers, children requested them to revamp their responsibilities toward children to ensure positive parenting through availing time to talk about their education and behaviors and contribute to the establishment of home based Early Childhood Development settings.
Besides parents, teachers and government, children must contribute a lot to positive parenting. In his opening remarks, Karasira Ange Patrick, children’s representative at the Summit assured children’s participation.
“We are committed to avoid unclean behaviors including fornication, drug abuse and vagabondage and we will sensitize others to do so” He assured
The pledge was supported by the summit resolutions directed to children. These resolutions reflect children’s commitment of being characterized by positive Rwandan cultural values reflected through good behaviors, like patriotism, love of work and education, avoidance of unclean practices as well as respecting and supporting their parents.
The Minister of Gender and Family and Promotion, Mrs. Esperance Nyirasafari urged children to continue promoting their rights calling them to participate in good parenting.
“All resolutions you presented here are realistic. We want you to share the message you get from this summit with your colleagues at the village level. As children, you should advise one another on avoiding bad behaviors that could result in negative effects,” she said.
The 12th National Children’s Summit was officially opened by the Right Honorable Prime Minister Dr. Edouard Ngirente who called on parents, teachers, leaders and Rwandan community to remember their duties on positive parenting urging them to collaborate in seeking solutions for the remaining problems that children are still facing.
“All Rwandans, we are required to collaborate so that we find good and sustainable solutions for problems that hamper our children’s progress,” he said while pledging for more support from the government to protect and promote children’s rights.
Speaking at the Summit, Mr. Ted Maly, UNICEF Representative to Rwanda commended the Summit for being an important platform for child participation in country’s development and pledged to continue supporting child participation initiatives.
The 12th National Children’s Summit brought together 488 children from all Districts. These include heads of children’s forum committees at the sector level; 30 heads of children’s forum committees at district level and 30 child representatives for children with disabilities at district level.
Others include 12 representatives of children living in refugee camps, a child representing children in street children center, 30 children mentors from districts, six mentors of children in refugee camps, members of the cabinet, parliamentarians, district mayors, vice mayors in charge of social affairs, and development partners.
