Vocabulary

Accountability is the fact or condition of being accountable or responsible.
Advocacy involves speaking up for others to make sure that their rights are respected and their wishes are heard and acted upon by decision makers. It also involves taking part in decisions and matters that affect one's life.
Agent of Change is one that acts or is empowered to act to uphold the rights of others so that change is made.
Empowerment is a process that helps people gain control over their own lives and act on issues that are important to them. It is a social process because it occurs in relationship to others.
Transparency is the condition of being transparent or clear

Purpose - Analysis of the 3-Step-Tool

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Children analyze the 3-Step-Tool to Empowerment to determine its effectiveness in enabling them to pursue the root cause of social injustice. This requires them to critically evaluate the benefits of having this structured framework as a guide.

Child Asks: How does the 3-Step-Tool help me respect the Convention's rights for all children?
Children's Rights Education: Enables the child to analyze the 3-Step-Tool to Empowerment to determine its effectiveness in respectfully realizing the rights of all children.
Child Answers: The 3-Step-Tool is an effective tool to use to respectfully realize the rights of children.

Classroom Learning Activities

Use the following questions to guide the children into understanding the value of the 3-Step-Tool structure in their advocacy. Initial questions might be:
  1. When we go to a new place in our city/town/village, how do we get there? (we use a road map)
  2. When we want to bake something, we follow a recipe. Why is it important to follow a recipe? What might happen if we don't? (the results are not consistent and might fail)
  3. If we identify that someone's rights are not being respected, how do you think you might help them get their rights respected?
Lead the children to ascertain that it is important to have a roadmap or recipe to follow that can help them become an effective advocate for social injustice. Once they understand that the 3-Step-Tool is a roadmap or guide to help them become an agent of change, then analyze the value of each step along the way.

Step 1 

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  1. Why is it important to first identify the cause worth advocating for?
  2. What do I need to know in order for me to identify a cause worth advocating for?

Step 2

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  1. What is the purpose of describing the situation or condition that requires attention, change, or advocacy?
  2. How does being able to describe the situation requiring my attention help me figure out my goal?

Step 3

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  1. Why is it important that my plan of action connect to my goal? 
  2. What is the value in identifying the supporting and inhibiting factors to my plan?
  3. What is the value in assessing whether my goal has been reached?
Materials for this sub-unit are available in Support tab here. 

Relevant Convention Articles

Article 12
1. States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.
2. For this purpose, the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, either directly, or through a representative or an appropriate body, in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law.
Article 13
1. The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child's choice.
2. The exercise of this right may be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:
(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others; or
(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.
Article 14
1. States Parties shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
2. States parties shall respect the rights and duties of the parents and, when applicable, legal guardians, to provide direction to the child in the exercise of his or her right in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child.
3. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.
Article 15
1. States Parties recognize the rights of the child to freedom of association and to freedom of peaceful assembly.
2. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of these rights other than those imposed in conformity with the law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order (ordre public), the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Online Resources and References

UNICEF - Advocacy: People's Power and Participation GuideThis online toolkit provides workshop participants, UNICEF staff members and their partners with the opportunity to continue their learning after a UNICEF CEE/CIS workshop in Istanbul, in September 2009.. Moreover, the toolkit can be readily updated and adapted to the changing needs of the participants and the environments in which they work, and it is our intentions that UNICEF staff members and their partners will continue the learning process by reflecting on their experiences developing and conducting advocacy campaigns and adding new best practices, examples of successes and challenges, and improved tools to it. Within its pages, it:
  • Includes the latest advocacy theories and best practices,
  • Explores how to advance issue when ordinary channels may not be available, 
  • Incorporates proven advocacy examples from throughout the work and particularly the CEE/CIS region, and
  • Suggests links to other important online resources that expand the range of tools and experience that participants have access to and learn from.
The CEE/CIS region poses specific challenges for advocacy practitioners, and we hope that the Istanbul-based training to familiarize UNICEF country and regional offices with advocacy strategies in September 2009 as well as the provision of the copyrighted materials and additional resources within this toolkit will catalyze new opportunities and enable UNICEF staff and partners throughout region to weave advocacy strategies into our work.