Save the Children aims to ensure that duty bearers for children’s rights at the local level in Kosova/o and CSOs are aware of the children’s rights situation and act in synergy to improve the situation of children. SCiK supports the capacity building of CSOs and child-led groups to promote and monitor the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and bring forth issues and recommendations to duty bearers. SCiK advocates for collaboration among relevant agencies working on child rights to increase their knowledge, to demand increased accountability from government institutions, and more public investment in children.
Child Rights delivery in Kosovo is supported through strengthened national governance and accountability.
As part of our CRG programme, SCiK supports child-led groups (CLG) to advocate and realize their rights. Currently, SCiK supports CLGs representing diverse children in Kosovo such as: ‘Respect our Rights’, the Child-led advocacy groups for children with disabilities ‘Hëna’, ‘Zëri Ynë’, and the Child-led group ‘Um Za Decu that supports children from the Serbian community in Mitrovica North.
Save the Children Kosova/o ensures increase in accountability towards children of Kosovo, including the most deprived groups of children through working in partnership with children and CSO’s, and through supporting the process of voicing their demands towards the duty bearers.
SCiK has introduced the Young Voices survey where over 1400 children from all over Kosovo were respondents and will use these findings in initiating discussions with politicians, policy makers and other duty bearers responsible for making child rights a reality.
Kosovo has begun the process of compiling Strategy and Action Plan for Children’s Rights and children from the Respect Our Rights Group (Child led group supported by SCiK) were called in as facilitators to lead the process of identifying priorities with other children.
Save the Children Kosova/o continues to encourage and support inclusion of children in decision making processes at local and central level with positive changes beginning to take shape.
Save the Children Kosova/o empowers children through encouraging their contributions in shaping of local policies; creating and delivering successful governance models is made possible through sharing and learning from regional experiences whilst an overall clear documentation of such practices enables a replication of the same from other potential parties.
The existing model of child led Assemblies is enabling an increase in knowledge for the children involved as well as for the Child Rights Coordinators that work within the municipalities which will lead to the creation of a better architecture for child rights.
Save the Children Kosova/o continues to support and empower child and youth led groups at national and local level. Children have been active in voicing their opinions and their evidence-based advocacy with various national and local institutional stakeholders such as the Minister of Education, Municipal Mayors and Finance Departments at municipal level.
We strive to provide evidence through research and studies on sufficiency, quality, equity and effectiveness in public resource mobilization, allocation and spending on children in order to achieve an increase in budget allocation in Early Child Care Development / Inclusive Education. Save the Children Kosova/o uses social accountability methods and tools available at the community level to reach the national level working toward creating responsive systems with children’s priorities taken into account.
We have begun our work on making children visible in municipal budgets, by supporting children in advocating for inclusion in the municipal budgeting planning process and ensuring inclusion of identified children’s priorities. For the first time, for two municipalities in Kosovo, Save the Children has carried out and produced 3 policy papers looking into the level of transparency and accountability, a report showing the level of expenditures for children, while at the same time initiating the creation of Citizen friendly budgets.