The premiere showing of We Have Rights Okay at Newcastle Upon Tynes Tyneside Cinema recently was well timed, we thought. A new millennium a good time to release a video on childrens rights.
| Children feel teachers dont treat them with any respect, yet theyre supposed to feel respect for the teachers. |
Produced by Save the Children, it tells the story of kids from the North East giving their views to the Government about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The convention, which became international law more than 10 years ago, has all the rights written down that under 18s are supposed to have. Every five years our Government has to report to an international committee to say what it is doing to make sure UK children are getting those rights. This time the Government asked Save the Children to get the views of children from the North East.
The video shows kids from the region telling the Government how they thought they werent getting their rights. It includes issues about health, discrimination, teenage pregnancy and not being able to access to contraception.
Education is anther issue, as Chris Pandrich, of SCFs North East England team, and the force behind the making of the video told us.
In terms of rights to education and making sure that peoples talents are developed to the full, says Chris, rights are not being respected, especially in comprehensive schools.
Children feel teachers dont treat them with any respect, but yet theyre supposed to feel respect for the teachers. They feel that if theyre in trouble, theyre not allowed to give their side of the story. If there are reasons why things havent been done or they are behaving in a certain way, teachers treat them like theyre making excuses or wont listen to reasons. In that kind of environment its difficult to learn very much.
The video even features kids as young as five or six expressing their opinions. Some people think because theyre kids they dont know what theyre on about, but theyre wrong, as Children Have Rights Okay shows. Theyve got opinions and need to be heard as well.
It was aimed at everyone, we guessed, but of particular interest to anyone concerned with childrens rights. All children will want to see it because its about their rights, but grown-ups should see it too. Grown-ups have to be aware that children have rights.
Sometimes grown-ups dont always know best. Sometimes they forget that we are from a different generation so are living differently.
We thought the video was really good. Before watching it we knew that children had rights, we just didnt know what they were.
Most kids dont know theyve got rights, that theyve got a voice, but they need to be informed of it, so they know theyve got that voice.
About the team
This article was produced by editors Hayley Sager and Gemma Burr, 15, and reporters Ashleigh Rainey, 9; and Lyndsey Smeaton, 10. It was published in the North West Post in Newcastle.
