Today was Universal Children’s Day - the day when the Convention on the Rights of the Child was passed. NCFC, the National Committee for Families and Children, celebrated the day with the launch of a new logo, website, and awareness campaign. The launchings were at an open day this morning at the Bliss Center. NCFC’s Program Coordinator for Advocacy and Public Education Stephanie Daniels says it is a new beginning for NCFC.
Stephanie Daniels, Advocacy Coordinator NCFC
“It is really a new beginning for the NCFC. We’re trying to get the public more involved in the work that we do because we do a lot of work but it is not highlighted enough and so people always ask what’s happening with children and as the lead organization that should be protecting the rights of children, it is a new step in getting people to know what we’re doing.”
Pearl Stuart, Executive Director – NCFC
“We I believe had a good program to show that we indeed appreciate and we are doing what we have to do for children. They are entitled to this, it is indeed their right.
Something that is special, near, and there to my heart is CSEC, Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, I think that is of major major concern to us and we do have amendments in place that speak to this. We are looking to make sure it is fine tuned where we can put away the perpetrators, we want to make sure there is nothing there to prevent these perpetrators being criminalized and incarcerated. There are amendments to laws that will be taken effect, we are looking at possibly early January 2009.”
Stephanie Daniels,
“The website is our public education tool and that address is http://ncfc.org.bz and what’s there is basically information about our programs as well as information on other social sector agencies, what are some of their events happening, because there is a calendar tool, and also there is a tool for information seekers to download our publications and reports because we do produce a lot of them on the situation with children.”
Keith Swift,
Who do you foresee utilizing the website?
Stephanie Daniels,
“Well we are hoping that teachers and students will make use of the website and we are also hoping that other partners in the social sector would use it to find out what’s happening at the NCFC and how they can become a part of that.”
A major part of this morning’s open day was the release of NCFC’s Adolescent Governance Survey. Dylan Williams, the Assistant Program Coordination for Children’s Participation, led the initiative. 10,293 teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 were polled. 9,921 of them were high school students. The teenagers listed health and security as among the areas of greatest personal concern.
The NCFC website is http://ncfc.org.bz.
