Empowering Children’s Participation in Malta

ended

The project will contribute to the implementation of the first thematic area of the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child – Participation in Political and Democratic Life. The project proposed is a partnership between Malta’s Ministry for Social Policy and Children's Rights (MSPC) and the University College Cork (UCC). The MSPC is the national authority entrusted with promoting and safeguarding the protection and rights of children in Malta, whereas the UCC team involves some of the leading experts in children’s rights at a global level, headed by Professor Lundy. Our aim through the project is to enable systematic, long-term and sustainable change that will enable and empower children’s participation in Malta’s democratic process. This reflects identified structural, organisational, resource and tool gaps identified at national and European level. This will be achieved through the following objectives: -SO1: To create and launch a national Online Child Participation Platform (OCPP), available both as a child friendly web-tool and as an application (app), enabling safe, inclusive and meaningful child participation in national policy-making; -SO2: Through cooperation with UCC, build the capacity of policymakers to integrate and improve child participation in decisionmaking via (i) a 3 day training for at least 15 Ministry employees; (ii) Ministry employees will disseminate and transfer the knowledge gained across government through the Inter Ministerial Committee; and (iii) to create an innovative Child Policy Evaluation Toolkit, for use in Malta but which has transnational applicability -SO3: To implement an awareness raise awareness on children's right to be heard and on child participation, and promote the project and the OCPP. The project will be implemented in full consultation with children throughout, whilst also ensuring that the project takes a do-no-harm approach in terms of gender and discrimination concerns.