GMC at the Special Session

At the Special Session, a GMC workshop focusing on the question: "What next?" was held. With 95 million individuals having said 'Yes', it was necessary to articulate the next steps to take action. The meeting gathered several hundred participants and generated an active discussion. Participants agreed unanimously that young people are the main stakeholders of the GMC and that their active participation and leadership in the development, implementation and evaluation in all aspects of the movement is a must. Participants agreed that the GMC must remain flexible, avoiding hierarchy or becoming an institution in itself. A key priority of the GMC will be to integrate programmes at the national and local level, linking to existing structures and networks, such as child rights clubs and local NGOs.

Participants agreed to analyse the national results of the Say Yes campaign and to start a dialogue with their communities about priority issues that need to be addressed. One suggestion was to create 'observatories' of young people in each country to monitor the progress of the NPAs, meeting with governments on a regular basis to give them feedback. Such observatories could carry out action campaigns, focused on one of the 10 imperatives, and integrating the principles of the GMC into school curricula.

Building bridges between organizations and paying special attention to grass-roots problems will be a key focus of the GMC. The question raised by a child-rights activist from Malawi, "Who are we leaving out?", affirmed the need to ensure children, adolescent and grass roots participation in the Movement. Adopting the declaration of the Children's Forum, 'A World Fit For Us', as the GMC's own statement of purpose was agreed as the first step. It is expected that the GMC will play a vital role in all follow-up to the Special Session.

Read The Global Movement for Children seeks to build on momentum