Adolescents and youths share their views on the education they want for a better world

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, CLADE, partnering with adolescents and youths in Latin America and the Caribbean, with the support of UNICEF, launched the campaign #TheEducationWeNeed for the world we want

The initiative #TheEducationWeNeed for the world we want is aimed at mobilizing adolescents and youths in Latin America and the Caribbean, inviting them to tell us what education they need for a better world and the most important demands from their countries.

In the occasion of the anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which, among other rights, sets the right to education and participation of girls, boys, adolescents and youths, we wished not only authorities would evaluate the advances and remaining challenges on the achievement of the Convention. Our purpose was that, through great mobilization on social networks and the media, it would be possible to create contexts in which adolescents and youths might express what education they need for the world they want. The idea was to contribute to their acknowledgement as rights holders, supporting their participation in the debates on the right to education and the education policies within our region. Adolescents and youths interested in participating would send us their contributions in videos, texts, poems, songs, designs and other formats they considered appropriate. 

Independently of the form of expression chosen, we wanted to hear their perspectives, dreams, expectations, we wanted to give them leading roles and a voice. We know youths have much to say and we know States have the obligation to take into account their opinions in regards to policies affecting them – such as education policies.

As a result of the campaign, we received until now more than 65 videos of adolescents and youths from different countries in the region. We also received photos, drawings and texts, in which youths and adolescents presented their realities and their most important desires in regards to education.

Below, we present some of the main key messages that were shared on the contributions received by our campaign:

• The demand for public, quality, free education is highlighted.
• They say NO to criminalization of students’ protesting.
• An education with no limits is asked for, so they can learn beyond the basics.
• An education from the South, that is, from decolonizing and Latin-American views is requested.

Adolescents and youths want a secular, free, inclusive, humanistic, egalitarian, democratic, feminist, free of bullying, universal, ambientalist, more human, comprehensive, solidary, integrating, innovative, creative and transformative, renewed education, with no borders, which enables the fulfilment of dreams, which gets out of the four walls of education centers, which helps citizens’ participation, an empathy-generating education, which contributes to promote debating environments, which ensures critical thinking, in which people are taught how to think, not only to obbey; a diverse, ludic, free of prejudice, capable of developing all our talents, counting on adecuate investment education. They also demand a feminist and transformative education, with gender equality and the right to comprehensive sexuality education.

Videos:

All the videos are published in our Instagram.

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