World Children’s Day
20/11/2024
Welcome to World Children's Day! This used to be called Universal Children's Day but the day has been re-branded!
This day was set up in 1954 by the United Nations. In 1959, the UN agreed its Declaration on the Rights of the Child. In 1989 the Convention on the Rights of the Child became the most widely ratified international human rights treaty, setting out a number of children’s rights including:
- the right to life,
- to health,
- to education
- to play,
- to family life,
- to be protected from violence,
- to not be discriminated,
- and to have their views heard.
Here's a short but brilliant video (1 min 17 secs) from the children of Yemen!
Here's another video clip (2 mins 54 secs) which gives a bit more information and which includes one particularly surprising fact about a country which does not give its children the same rights as others around the world!
A PRAYER FOR TODAY (available here as a 1:00 minute video)
Loving God,
Jesus said "Let the children come to me"
and so we pray for children around the world,
that they will feel loved, valued, cared for and encouraged.
We pray for adults that they will enable children
to enjoy a childhood they can look back on happily.
We pray too that all of us acknowledge each other - whatever our differences -
as children made in your image,
who deserve to be treated with dignity and love.
We pray this in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN
