Report of the Meeting of the African Commission 9th 21st of March 2009 at the Hotel l'amité in Cotonou/ Republic of Benin Report written by Adaora Nnaji with contributions from Suru Boyon (National Delegate from Nigeria). Table of Content 1. Who is the African Commission? Page 2 2. Who is the Communication Group Page 2 3. Summary of Work done from the 9th - 17th of March Page 2 4. Presentation of a research done by the socio-anthropologist Prof. Abou Bakari Page 3 5. Meeting with representatives from different NGOs Page 4 6. Approval of new associations joining AMWCY Page 6 7. Own impressions about the meeting Page 7
1. Who is the African Commission? The African Commission is a group of African National Delegates representing countries joining the African Movement of Working Children and Youths. Unfortunately not all AMWCY-countries could join for this meeting in 2009; delegates from the following countries took part at the meeting: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Côte d'ivoire, Cameroon, Gambia, Guinea-Conakry, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, RDC, Rwanda, Sénégal, Tchad, Togo, Zimbabwe. Each country is being represented by one delegate. The African Commission meets annualy in order to give account on the work of the past year concerning the following seven aspects: 1. IGAs (Income Generating Activities), 2. collaboration (lobbying, networking with other NGOs), 3. coordination (election of executives), 4. communication (bulletins etc.), 5. materialization of the 12 rights, 6. child trafficking, 7. training (to organize trainings and technical workshops). This year's meeting also served to prepare the upcoming General Assembly of the AMWCY. For further details read paper COMAF compte rendu. 2. Who is the Communication Group? Apart from the national delegates the Communication Group of the AMWCY met at this occasion. This group is made out of ten AMWCY-youths coming from the following countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'ivoire, Guinea, Guinea Conakry, Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Rwanda, Togo. The communication group has the responsibility of updating the AMWCY-web-page, designing comics, writing the newsletter, creating the annual MAEJT Challenge -brochure. The communication groups meets annually. 3. Summary of the work done from the 9th until the 17th of March. The following summary is based on the notes of the Nigerian National Delegate, Suru Boyon. The first two days served to orientate oneself and to introduce oneself to one another. Also the delegates had to set up certain rules and regulation of how to behave and elected chairpersons of the day. On the second and the third day the delegates had to submit the documents requested concerning the statistics of the grass-root-groups and associations within their countries including: sympathizers, girls, boys, youths, children. Also they had to give report about all the activities done in the year 2008. On the fourth day the delegates worked in small working groups and planed the work for the year 2009 including the expected results of the planed work. On the fifth day the delegates had to cross-check their financial reports of the year 2008. 2
On the sixth day the delegates received a training on how to draw statistic tables. It seemed as if some associations have problems of accounting their finances correctly. The seventh day was a day rest and the delegates went to the beach. The eighth day is being quoted from Suru Boyon's notes directly, in order to keep the authenticity of the delegate's emotions: The eighth day: The real man came, who is called Fabrizio. He tried to analyze what we have done so far, but he sees that we all have not submit all our documents and he was sad and asked some questions like: how can we analyze work done without complete documents and no one can answer the question. Ninth day: work in working groups in order to finish the questionnaires belonging to the evaluation. Later on a session concerning the necessity of evaluation led by Fabrizio took place. After that delegates were suggested who will go to Finland. Anna Liesto from Plan International Finland, which is one of the donors of ENDA came and invited two children, a boy and a girl, to the summer school Plan International and another NGO organizes in Romania. Afterwards the delegates continued with their training on evaluation and defined it as the checking of work done, either we are working towards our goal or not. They talked about the role of sympathizer and defined it as the children that know that there is an organisation in their country and because they might have joined another organization or because they are too old, they are not opportuned to be part of the organization. Tenth day: a discussion about the upcoming General Assembly took place. End of Suru's notes. 4. Presentation of research findings of the socioanthropologist Dr. Abou-Bakari Imorou, Institut Federatif De Recherche, Parakou, Benin Republic A report on the results will be published soon. The presentation was based on an unfinished working paper on the research. Prof. Imorou researched on ICT (Information and Computer Technology). He emphasizes that there is another form of illiteracy, the illiteracy concerning ICT. It is not only to know how to read an write, but also how to operate ICT. Co-researching about MAEJT together with somebody doing research with them and within them, as a member of MAEJT following the research question: How does MAEJT use ITC (computer, etc.)? Research gone through the MAEJT in Togo and Benin concerning the development of MAEJT. 3
Tried to distinguish traditional (e.g. the gong) from new technology (e.g. cellphone). How has MAEJT changed through the use of computer? E.g. they have also observed wcy posting letters in a letter box in order to communicate. The computer is a collective good of an association while the mobile phone is an individual good. Some have the line (sim-card), but do not have the phone. Some have to climb the mountain, to receive network. MAEJT has identified certain places as a network-points for the cellphone. Generally: MAEJT finds ways to communicate. A cellphone is less exclusive in terms of literacy. More used than computer. Computer creates a hierarchy in the society. The one who is computer literate takes on an important role in the society. Cost of a mobile phone is an indicator of importance to possess one. The access to computer can be get in e.g. cyber cafes. In some societies: if you have a mobile phone you are considered as a God. Depending on the locality the cost of communication is high. However: such rural areas (e.g. in Togo) are important for MAEJT. In some areas they make phone calls and later (possibly after several days) pay the bill (call on credit). The amount of e-mails has increased. Due to some electric-power-problems in certain areas the habitants of those areas found out that the majority of phones being used are Nokia-phones. This is due to the long lasting Nokia-phone-battery. 5. Meeting with Representatives from different NGOs The African Commission and Communication Groups of AMWCY meet the representatives from the following organisations: ESAM, Plan Benin, EMMAU-Benin, ACAD, L'information, L'Eclairur, Radio Tokpa, Le Télégramme, SED-ADO ONG, HDICS-ONG. Deborah from Ivory Coast gives them a detailed report about the movement's efforts concerning the materialisation of the 12 rights.1. AMWCY has been working on the changes concerning the materialization of the 12 rights and collaboration between each other and within our countries. Support has been established for wcy concerning the access to free health-care and literacy courses, running of IGAs, project management etc. 3000 children have been trained on IGAs and project management all over the AMWCY. Increasing number of grassroot-groups which are now mastering their 12 rights. IGAs in some countries have been able to finance the school fees, pay transport fees of wcy's to certain association's activities etc. Child trafficking: a lot of awareness-rising campaigns have been carried through so far. 280 villages have been sensitized in the past concerning the risks of child trafficking to big cities. 4
Discussion about the presentation Guest from.esam asked the question concerning the possibility of having free healthcare for WCY. Deborah answers: The WCYs offers the hospital general cleaning of hospitals and in return they receive free health-care. Nicasio from Guinea-Bissau says that the supporting-structures got into contact with medical doctors in order for them to assist the WCY whenever necessary. Guest from Plan International wishes a detailed report about the achievements for each country. Tamberké says the reports are available. Guest from EMMAUS-Pahou: health-care is not free. In Benin Rep. Children have to pay an amount of 1000 CFA. Guest from ESAM has never heard about the 12 rights the movement uses as its vital tool of work. He knows about the UN-CRC, African Charta, but not about the 12 rights. Guest from ESAM: an adult member contributes 1000 CFA and children 500 into a health-care fond. In case of sickness money from the fond will be withdrawn. But the price of medical care will be reduced by a certain percentage for WCY members. ENDA-member:12 rights has been worked on since the year 2000. The rights of the African Charta are in line of the African Charta. Some actions of the WCY have been implemented in the African Charta. And during the 8th meeting we will also celebrate the 20th birthday of the Children's Rights Convention. 1367 grass-root groups, 80776 members from 21 countries. Some more grass-root groups are applying to join. The African Commission group (21 members) has a follow-up group comprising 8 members meeting in between two African Commission meetings. The communication group, the group of elders and the executive management group (made out of children) for technical support mission visits. Apart from that there is a group for exodus works on activities concerning child trafficking. Questions arose concerning the ILO Convention 138 and the membership of children at AMWCY. Tamberké explained that AMWCY is about children working and needing protection from exploitation. ESAM guest says that AMWCY needs to have some stronger arguments for the organizations and institution who do not support the movement due to the fact that they rather follow the line that children should not work (regarding the ILO Convention 138). Though, he also admits that the movement got stronger and has more and more supporters. He also says that more has to be done on state-level to support and protect the children. 5
Statistics of the year 2008 Cp the power-point-presentation concerning the statistics. Tamberké says that the countries: Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast have increased their members by two due to the instable financial and political situation of the country. Tamberké explains the term sympathizers : youths, children coming who are not members, but join the associations and movements activities. Possibly they are not members because they are now too old. The president of Finland visited MAEJT/ ENDA in Senegal to assess the work of the movement and was very impressed about the work of the wcy and MAEJT in general. Discussion about the 8th General Assembly of MAEJT in Benin Oct./ Nov. 2009. read hands-out concerning the General Assembly. Certain Beninese ministries have been visited and are going to e.g. the ministry of defense ensure the security of the meeting. Ministry of Economy are going to give some financial support for the meeting. Some other partners offered means of transportation for the WCY during the General Assembly. Other children are going to be invited to the General Assembly too. E.g.: children from the Beninese Children's Parliament. 6. Approval of new associations joining the AMWCY The African Commission decided on the status of newly created associations and debated on their approval. In order for an association to apply for approval the association has to comprise at least five grass-root groups, apply to send a written letter of approval for a new association to the African Commission and should try to fulfill the AMWCY target of having 73 % children (not youths as a majority) and 50% girls (due to the fact that girls are most vulnerable and the movement is a child-led movement). 1. Benin: registered 7 associations as new associations. Benin has 27 associations. Some of them are still in observation, meaning that they are not yet fully approved. 2. Burkina-Faso: 7 new associations: Four new associations have been visited last year, three have to be visited this year. None of them are fully approved yet. 3. Cameroon: 6 new associations which have to be approved. Amongst those six some have not yet officially applied for approval. 4. Ivory-Coast: 3 new association have been approved. 2 still have to apply officially. 5. Mali: three new associations have to be approved, one of them has been visited. 6. Guinea-Bissau: They have to complete their documents. 2 new associations are still in observation. 7. Guinea-Conakry: 10 new associations, but have to complete their documents. For now there are 18 associations and 30 in observation. 8. Nigeria: 4 new associations which have to be visited and are still in observation. For now there is 1 approved association. 9. RDC: 1 approved association. 6
10. Rwanda: 1 has been visited and has to complete its documents. 11. Senegal: 2 have to be visited, they are still in observation. 12. Tchad: 4 new associations. 13. Togo: 3 new associations to be visited. As a total: 1 357 Grassroots Groups - 183 AWCY (including 145 full members after the AfCom) - 21 countries 72% children and 54% girls. 7. Own impression about the meeting The AMWCY is a well structured and organized, child-centered and child-led organisation. Throughout the meeting the delegates tried to complete their statistics and other documents and also presented them to representatives of different NGOs visiting the meeting. Not only that, the delegates were also prepared to answer critical questions which the guest asked them. Throughout the meeting has been chaired and moderated by different delegates and facilitated by a former national delegate from Guinea-Conakry, Tamberké Tounkara. Apart from that the AMWCY has a clear-cut structure of committees and executives comprising delegates from the different member countries organizing the movements communication and bureaucratic affairs. Those committees are assisted by adults. The first impression of thinking that the AMWCY might not be as child-led as the LatinAmerican movement has been eradicated. Some of my interviews with the National Delegates even displayed to me the fact that some grass-root-groups work without animators and only when they encounter some severe problems the wcy will contact their animator. The role of the animators and facilitators is clearly limited to assist the wcy in bureaucratic affairs, to frame their meetings concerning the contents and aims and to teach the wcys vital tools helping the children to keep account of their finances independently or to teach them new possible IGAs. Also, the majority of my interviews with the national delegates displayed to me that the children themselves decide on which IGA they want to perform and how to (re-)invest the money generated through it. To me, this is an evidence of a child-led movement having an effective equal-eye-level partnership with adults limited to a certain degree in order for ideas, thoughts and results to be generated from the children and youth's own voluntary activities. *** 7