Central American Workshop to Promote Child Rights in the Media

Central American Workshop to Promote Child Rights in the Media

As part of the project on the “Promotion and Protection of Children’s Rights in the Inter-American System”, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Central American Workshop to Promote Child Rights in the Media took place in the city of Guatemala from 24 to 27 October 2011.

The workshop was carried out on the premises of Mariano Gálvez University and targeted government officials, journalists and representatives of organized society, with the purpose of generating an opportunity for reflection and learning regarding how to address subjects related to childhood and adolescence in the media, from a perspective of rights.

Adolescents and officials from the Open Schools Programme of Guatemala’s Social Welfare Secretariat (SBS, in Spanish) took part, as well as civil servants from the social communication areas of the governing bodies for children from the states of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama, in addition to representatives of international agencies such as UNICEF Guatemala, Plan International Nicaragua and Save the Children.

Issues addressed included the Convention on the Rights of the Child, public policies as communication tools, social responsibility and the media, and how child-related issues are dealt with in journalism, in Guatemala and in the region. Journalistic writing activities were also carried out and the state’s experiences in the promotion of rights and the media were presented.