The Children’s Media Week sessions are interactive, participatory, and practical, and are designed to tap into each participant's unique contribution. The programme's 30 participants are between the ages of 10 and 14 and are drawn from diverse backgrounds. These children take part in screening sessions, hands-on video and animation training workshops, a studio visit, and a child rights workshop.

Specifically, during the screening sessions participants watch several television programmes from all over the world. They then engage in discussion sessions to explore issues such as the appropriateness of the programme culturally and age-wise, relevance of the message, and whether they feel their views and opinions have been taken into consideration. The programmes are also used to engage the children in discussions about their rights as children and, specifically, their right to participation.

One of the programmes that is screened features “Sara, an animated cartoon character, [who] is portrayed as an energetic and intelligent young girl who has to make important life decisions, such as whether to stay in school or how to deal with difficult adults. Through the narratives, she emerges as a role model and a heroine of girls’ empowerment in Africa, helping young women make the transition into adulthood. The Sara episodes generates relevant and educational content for discussions on key issues affecting adolescent girls, such as HIV/AIDS, the unequal workloads of boys and girls, teenage pregnancy, sexual abuse and early marriage.”

This initiative also includes one-day, hands-on multimedia workshops that use video and animation. Through these workshops, the Children’s Voices Foundation intends to empower participants to such an extent that they can use these as tools in advancing their own agenda. The goal is to guide them to become critical and intelligent users of various forms of media rather than to be totally mesmerised and powerless by the media content delivered to them. Children from the Plan International Children’s Video Project conduct the video workshop.

The children are taken to fully operational television and radio studios at the Kenya Institute of Education for planned visits. The organisers say participants are able to experience the operations behind what they see and hear on television and radio. The children are also given a chance to share their insights with adult producers and other stakeholders.

Children, Rights.

Organisers hope that the participating children will be able to use this avenue of information dissemination to the benefit of their peers. They also envision the project as:

• a preamble for the International Children’s Day of Broadcasting
• a means of bringing together media professionals, non-government organisation (NGO) activists, children, and the Government to interact on a child-rights-led media agenda
• a forum for child-to-child and child-to-adult approaches to development
• a stimulus for the formation of new partnerships and initiatives
• an opportunity for strategising new and united approaches to getting children’s voices heard.