Children on the Edge adopt a rights based approach in all our work. We are guided by a UN treaty called The Convention for the Rights of the Child. This convention is a promise, made in 1989, by governments across the world, to do everything in their power to protect and promote children’s rights to survive and thrive, to learn and grow, to make their voices heard and to reach their full potential.
There are many different types of child rights organisations dedicated to ensuring that all children are able to realise their rights - from the right to food and housing, to protection from abuse, to education, or to freedom of expression, amongst others.
Some child rights organisations work directly with affected communities by providing services like education or healthcare. Others focus on campaigning, advocacy and lobbying to influence policies around the rights of children, by tackling issues like child marriage or promoting gender equality.
We know that children in marginalised communities often face abuse, exploitation, exclusion, neglect and even death; and their plight is often seen to be too challenging to tackle. It’s these children that we work to support. We currently work with more than 17,000 children in Bangladesh, India, Uganda, Myanmar, Ukraine and Afghanistan.
Our mission is to create conditions in which every marginalised child can flourish and thrive no matter where they live and irrespective of the challenging circumstances they face.
We place children at the heart of everything we do by working hand-in-hand with local communities to restore hope, dignity, and justice; and to actively involve everyone in creating transformation.
By working alongside communities, we design programs tailored to their specific needs and circumstances using our 30 years of experience. This has enabled us to transform the lives of children facing some of the most challenging circumstances, by co-creating protective, nurturing environments in which they can safely live, play, learn, and grow.
When we began, in 1990, the children on the edge we served were those incarcerated and forgotten in Romanian orphanages. Today, the “edge” takes us into refugee camps, slums, and warzones where we support Rohingya, Congolese, and Syrian refugee children, and those facing internal displacement, caste discrimination, poverty, and exploitation.
The geography and circumstances may be different tomorrow, but we’re always ready to go — by invitation only— into marginalised communities where children are affected by poverty, displacement, conflict, and persecution. By creating protective environments that generate hope, life, colour and fun, we enable children to realise their rights.
Our Child Rights Approach is holistic, multi-layered, and guided by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). We place children centre stage by encouraging them to know their worth, to understand their rights, and to be active agents in shaping their own futures.
Being guided by the CRC means that instead of regarding children as passive objects of care and charity, they are seen as human beings with a distinct set of rights. As an organisation we resource and support children to be agents of change in their own futures.
All the rights described in the Convention are things that many charities and civil groups uphold as part of their daily activities, the difference is that organisations with a rights-based approach don’t uphold rights incidentally, but contribute directly and intentionally.
Rights in the Convention are set out in 54 articles which describe what a child needs to survive, grow, thrive and reach their potential. They are all as important as each other, but four articles (2,3, 6 & 12) are given the special status of ‘guiding principles’, which are needed for any of the rights in the Convention to be realised.
These principles are listed below, with a few examples of how we are guided by them them in our work:
All children are equal and entitled to the same rights as each other. Where we encounter discrimination and inequality, we do what we can do to redress the balance. This is why you will often find us in hard to reach areas, working with hard to reach people, or those overlooked by the media or larger organisations. Because of this commitment, we often have to go against the grain, and sometimes work has to remain low profile or covert.
Within our programmes we aim to give equal opportunities to marginalised, disadvantaged or excluded groups. This could be ensuring provision for children with disabilities, seeking out children from the most vulnerable households, or safeguarding girls from exploitation and exclusion.
The child’s best interests must be the utmost priority in all decisions and actions that affect children. Determining what is in children’s best interests can be a complicated process, and has been the subject of much consideration in legal, academic and operational areas. We ensure that assessments take into account the children’s own opinions and feelings. We include children in our Focus Group Discussions and interviews, as well as ensure Child Forums can offer a space where children can input into our programmes and give us their feedback. We ask what children need, rather than assuming what they need.
These are rights to the resources, skills and services necessary for the physical survival and full development of a child. They include rights to protection from violence, adequate food, shelter, and clean water. Our projects counter threats to children's survival and development in various ways.
In Uganda, we have campaigned for a change in the law to prevent child sacrifice, a harmful traditional practice which was claiming the lives of children in the areas where we work. We work with communities to improve livelihoods and offer means to combat malnutrition.
In the high altitude camps of Kachin State, Myanmar, we provide warm clothes so children can survive the winter and offer emergency assistance when communities are struggling to access food and supplies.
Listening to children's voices is written about in Article 12 of the CRC. When adults are making decisions that affect children, children have the right to say what they think should happen and have their opinions taken into account. We make sure that children have a say in the planning and evaluation of our projects.
This could be through child councils and interviews, the creation of their own newsletters, resourcing them to express themselves and plan their own futures or just enabling them to stamp their ownership on the project in creative ways. We also take steps to ensure they can understand and claim rights for themselves.
Each child we work with is valued as an individual, they are taught in a child friendly way about their rights and they are supported to be the best version of themselves they can be.
Through our work, we enable children to realise their rights and thrive. In every place that we work, we ensure that all children can learn, grow and play in safe, colourful spaces; whether that is in preschool classrooms, learning centres, school buildings, or out in the communities where they live.
Our work transforms communities and ensures that children are able to flourish. We watch children grow in confidence and develop hope for the future. We see parents develop positive and healthy relationships with their children. We witness communities transform, becoming cleaner and safer and look as communities advocate for their rights and work together to support each other.
