The 12th National Children’s Summit, will take place on December 7th, 2017 at Kigali in the Parliament Building under the theme: “Positive Parenting: Foundation of the Rwanda we want” which was translated in Kinyarwanda as “Uburere buboneye: inkingi yo kubaka u Rwanda twifuza”.
The choice of the theme is driven by the need of highlighting positive parenting as the bedrock for the well-being of the Rwandan children into families, reflecting parents’ responsibilities towards caring for their children and providing for their needs as well as calling child rights stakeholders to help the community raise children into productive and patriotic citizens among others.
The summit will be a great opportunity to remind parents about their responsibilities toward children and being role models for their children; revamp children’s commitment to fulfill their obligations, recall all stakeholders to make Children Forum Committees more active and sensitize children to effectively use Information Communication and Technology.
Walk for Children’s Advocacy to mark the event
To mark the event, different important activities will be conducted including a walk for Children’s Advocacy.
The walk will be held on December 7th after the main event. Children and other participants of the summit will conduct a walk from the Parliament to “Petit stade” to advocate for a common fight against irresponsibility of parents towards their children, teenage pregnancies, child labor, school dropout and street children phenomenon among others.
On 5th December, Government institutions and partners will exhibit child rights achievements in form of videos, readings, pictures and art/craft materials.
Since 21st until 24th November, there have been pre-summit children consultations at Cell, Sector and District. The aim of these consultations is giving all children a platform to express their views and opinions on the theme and sub-themes which become the foundational discussion points for the Summit.
The pre-summit consultation meeting at Cell level brought together all children of the Village in the Cell whereas those at sector level gathered members of the children’s forum committee of the Cell. At District level, representatives of the children’s forum committees of the sectors convened to compile the inputs from their sectors and to prepare for the artifacts, sketches, theaters containing messages related to the theme of the event.
In addition to different officials and partners, 488 children including 416 President of children’s forum Committees at Sector level; 30 Presidents of children’s forum Committees at District level; 30 Child representing children with disabilities at District level and 12 Children representatives of children living in refugee camps will attend the 12th National Children’s Summit.
The annual National Children’s Summit is a consultative forum which brings together children’s delegates from across the country to exchange views and ideas on the issues at hand. It was initiated in Rwanda in 2004 upon the request from children to His Excellency Paul KAGAME, the President of the Republic of Rwanda to grant to every child right to participation and to provide an opportunity for dialogue amongst children, policy makers, Government officials, civil society, development partners and all citizens in general.