Off to the Eurochild Annual Conference...

In a few hours I will be leaving for Italy, to go to the Eurochild Annual Conference!

The theme of the conference is children's rights and participation. I will hopefully be able to tweet updates from the event. If you would like to follow what is going on there, my twitter handle is @_Catti and the hashtag used for this conference is #ac2013milan.

Now I have to go and finish packing but will try to post again from Milan!

The Value of Volunteers

Volunteering can involve doing random things! Today, I found myself at a train station at 7.00 am, whilst it was still dark, ready to hand out leaflets about Wrap Up London, which is a scheme where people can donate their unused or unwanted coats, for those in need.

Early (and rainy!) start this morning - on my way to volunteer at Baker Street station!

The Wrap Up London stand at Baker Street

 

Afterwards, I tweeted about this, and got a really nice response from Hands On London, the charity running this scheme.

 

I am always looking for ways to show appreciation to those who volunteer for my organisation, CHW, and tweeting a quote like this is a really nice idea! Everyone at CHW is a volunteer, and I am so grateful for the time they give to support the children's projects. Volunteers are indeed priceless, like the quote says!

International Volunteer Day (IVD) is celebrated on 5 December each year. It can be a great opportunity to arrange or participate in voluntary event. If you are a volunteer manager or coordinator, IVD could also be used as an opportunity to highlight the work of the volunteers you work with and to thank them.

Here is an album on facebook from last year's IVD, showing some of CHW's volunteers in action!

I mostly volunteer for causes to do with children, but do other voluntary work too, whenever I can (like today!). Do you volunteer? If you do, what causes do you support? And if you are someone who works with volunteers, how do you thank them for their invaluable input?

Busy week ahead!

It will be a busy week, to try to keep up with NaBloPoMo - posting everyday throughout November!

From Wednesday to Friday, I am going to be attending the Annual Eurochild Conference in Italy.

Tomorrow I will be at Baker Street station for a couple of hours, from 7 am, helping to promote Wrap Up London 2013. This is a great initiative, where people can donate coats they no longer need to those in need.  Although I blog about children's rights, this project is for adults too, and coats for all ages can be donated. If you are a Londoner, please consider donating a coat! You can donate on 13-15 November, from 7am until 11am at these tube stations:

Waterloo

Kings Cross

Charing Cross

London Bridge

Liverpool Street

Paddington

Victoria

Euston

Baker Street

Canary Wharf

Highbury and Islington 

Alternative places are also given at the bottom of this page, for those who cannot make it to one of those stations then. 

Logo from Hands On London's Website

I also have a piece of work to complete tomorrow, so will have to get on with it after I am back from Baker Street!

Today, I had a meeting in London with people advocating for Roma and Travellers. I will have another meeting on Tuesday with some people visiting London, who work in the education sector in Brasov, Romania.

I will really try my best to post each day this week (hoping all goes well with my internet connection in Italy!). Sending out good vibes to everyone taking part in NaBloPoMo, and especially to all the bloggers on the Yeah Write Grid!

Hope you have a great week everyone!

News from Children's Hospital, Cape Town

Social media can take up lots of time! I am trying to learn how to use it in an effective way for my charity, CHW. It is more challenging than it sounds! Today I saw some good updates on the facebook page of the Sarah Fox Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. It is the only children's convalescent hospital serving the Western Cape. I have visited the hospital and seen the great work they do there! I am also hoping to fundraise for them in the future, if they send appeals to CHW.

Babies' ward

Their facebook page was updated from time to time, but today a post appeared from someone new, saying that they would now be responsible for adding to the page. The following was their second post today, which really shows what amazing work Sarah Fox does:

"We now have an aromatherapy programme at Sarah Fox, and I am the lucky person to be the aromatherapist (Fiona M...). I am so enjoying this. It is so rewarding to see a child smile - a child who cannot speak or move- but who feels his feet being massaged and a smile stretches his face. Or the quiet little boy who never speaks and looks VERY serious.. .and then one day he's a little chatterbox.. and you realise the lovely caring staff and the treatment he has had at Sarah Fox, have created a miracle."

The first update asked for more people to like their facebook page, so if you want to do that, you can go to their page here.

Nurses I met during my last visit to Sarah Fox, earlier this year.

(I don't have permission to share photos of the children here on my blog, but there should be more photos on the hospital's facebook page.)

Ideas for a good lucky dip needed!

Have you run a stall for children before, at a fete or a fair? Some volunteers for CHW are going to run a stall with a lucky dip to fundraise on 1 December in London. For those who are unfamiliar with what a lucky dip is, it is a game where small prizes are wrapped up and children select one. They don't know what they have won until they open it! The lucky dips I have seen usually have a large container, with something like shredded newspaper, etc, so that children have to dig through it to find a present. The volunteers did have a stall last year, but want to make it even better this year!

Volunteers at the stall, with the lucky dip, in 2012

If you have any tips for running a lucky dip, or a stall in general, it would be great to hear from you! Maybe you did a lucky dip with a twist? Then it would be great to hear how you made it even more fun for the children! The volunteers will be allowed to run other games too, alongside the lucky dip, so all ideas are welcome and would be very much appreciated!

Also, if  you are in London and know anyone, or any shops, that may be able to help with donating prizes, that would be wonderful too. Below is a photo of some of the prizes that were donated last year. They were very popular with the children.

We want to make it a really fun stall for the children! It will be raising funds for children who don't have very much, so it will all be for a good cause.

Some of the donated prizes in 2012.

Getting the prizes all wrapped and ready for last year's lucky dip!

A child's right to be heard

Should children be able to participate in decision-making? I definitely think so. As fellow human beings, I believe their opinions should be listened to and taken into account. In fact, they have a right to participate in decision-making, provided for in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Although, as this site, produced by Save the Children, in Wales, explains:  "This does not mean that children can now tell their parents what to do. The Convention encourages adults to listen to the opinions of children and involve them in decision-making."

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Article 12 of the Convention provides for the child's right to participate in decision-making.  This is summarised here by Eurochild:

"The right applies to decisions that affect individual children (such as decisions about their health and education) as well as groups of children (such as laws and policies). It requires adults to make sure that:

• active steps are taken to encourage and support children to give their views;
• children can express themselves in a way of their choosing, without worrying about the consequences of speaking up;
• children are told how much influence is possible and what influence they have in fact had."

States which have signed the Convention, and then made it part of their law, must implement all the children's rights and protections given in the Convention. Nearly every country in the world has made the Convention part of their law. Only three have not: Somalia, South Sudan and the USA.

The theme of Eurochild's Annual Conference, which takes place in Italy next week, is about the child's right to participate. The background paper for the Conference is here. I am really looking forward to attending and learning about the different ways people have put this right into practice!

Chatting with a Charity in Romania

Like a lot of people, I dread going to the dentist! I am scared about the pain and I hate hearing the sound of drills as I sit in the waiting room. Actually, I need to remind myself that I am very lucky to have access to dental care. I just finished a skype meeting with Oana, who runs an Association helping underprivileged children, in Romania. My charity, CHW, fundraises for this Association. We talked about the Association's educational programmes and the children's progress. Then Oana said that she has seen that some of the children's teeth are in bad condition. She told me that the cost of having a cavity filled can be equal to the cost of food for a family for a month! She said I could let CHW's supporters know that any donations towards toiletries, such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, and also soap, would all be very welcome. I will pass this message on for her.

It is amazing to know people like Oana, who put so much energy into improving the lives of children who so desperately need help. I will always try my best to support their efforts, as they are really making a positive impact - improving things in the present for the children, and also giving them hope for their future.

Helping Oana (right) at a fundraiser she had arranged at a university in Brasov, Romania, last year. Oana had made jewellery and art work to sell , to support the Association's programmes.