Children's Rights

Children’s Rights: The long-term Global Campus – Right Livelihood Foundation cooperation

In September 2019, the Global Campus and the Right Livelihood Foundation (RLF) entered into a long-term cooperation with the main purpose of enhancing children’s rights worldwide. The cooperation aims to realise this by strengthening the participation of children in all matters affecting their lives in the present and in the future. It also works towards engaging directly with the major crises that affect the lives of children on a daily basis.

The GC has therefore committed to strengthening its education, research, training, network-building and advocacy for the rights of children, as stipulated in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other similar instruments. To this end, the Global Campus will carry out new activities on children’s rights throughout its regions and networks.

In the words of the RLF Executive Director Ole von Uexküll, the GC-RLF cooperation is unique because it actively seeks ‘to bring academia and activism closer together’. Every year this unique interrelation between academia and activism is realised in practice via the implementation of projects and activities with real-world impact.

For the 2020/2021 academic cycle, these projects and activities will focus on the realisation of the following ultimate objectives:

• A network of action is created that seeks to advance children’s rights through innovative research, education and advocacy. 
• Children’s rights are mainstreamed within the 7 regional Master programmes and other activities of the Global Campus. 
• Educational formats (including advocacy components) are development and implemented that enable children to demand and further advance their rights. 
• Follow-up activities to the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty recommendations are developed and implemented.  
• Practice-orientated research to ongoing children’s rights strategic litigation efforts is conducted. 
• Innovative e-learning materials are developed, and e-learning activities are implemented to advance understanding of and engagement with children’s rights. 
• The network is actively engaged in addressing major crises that affect children’s rights (e.g. health, climate, migration) and is equipped to respond swiftly to upcoming crises.