Right of say for 8000 children in 20 schools

Dear Friends,

Although we are yet to get any funding for the project, we have gone ahead and identified the 20 schools. The schools are both in rural and urban areas. The headmasters of both secondary and primary schools are ready to try and implement a children’s parliament and see what kind of results that would bring to the school administration and general environment in school. Also identified are teachers that would be in the fore front in engaging the children to set up the parliament. These teachers will need to undergo scrutiny from pupils to ensure that they (children) are comfortable enough to work with them.

Clearly, Children’s Parliament has quite a lot of benefits that would bring to the good running of schools in Kenya and these include:

• There is a growing emphasis of children rights and later human rights in general once the children become adults
• Children will start to address their own problem and issues from an early age – person centred problem solving approach (An approach which believes in the others potential and ability to make the right choices for oneself, regardless of the society’s own values, beliefs and ideas.)
• Decisions made are positive unlike those decisions made by adults/teachers/staff which may have a negative impact
• Reduces chances of drop-outs since issues that would lead to drop-outs are dealt with in advance…
• Gives children a sense of responsibility and sharing of the consequences and gradually empowering them to be decision-makers. It’s crucial for growth and well-being of children to take responsibility for their actions, life, growth and development
• Children Parliament will help in focusing of children’s strengths and weakness and in so doing helps the teachers/school administration in respecting appreciating and developing talents/gifts and contributions of children in all circumstances. By acknowledging the creativity, resourcefulness and achievements of children, a level of trust and confidence is increased
• Children Parliament will enable children to assume the role of care takers of their families/society
• Children will become self-disciplined and self-motivated on account of the influence of Children Parliament
• Children will have citizenship training in practice, something that my country, Kenya needs a lot especially during the electioneering period that is on currently for the 4^th March general elections.

My dear friends to celebrate the second inauguration of President Obama, Goodjoe is hosting a design contest using the themes of democracy, literacy, youth voices, community engagement, and freedom of speech. They have invited t-shirt designers to submit their best designs for these themes.

They have invited their customers and supporters to vote on the best t-shirt designs. (See designs ) The winning t-shirt designs will be on sale on Goodjoe's website. Ten percent of all t-shirt sales will be donated to select GlobalGiving projects where our project is one of those 5 selected to be featured in this promotion. Proceeds from the t-shirt sales will be evenly divided among the five participating projects. 

Share this exciting news with your friends for us! Invite them to vote for their favorite t-shirt design. Voting will be taking place through Friday, February 15th. Individuals can vote by clicking on the t-shirt design here and rating the design. Please you could share this with your networks like Facebook, and/or Twitter.

Lastly, in 20 days Kenya will be going for elections and we pray and hope that all goes well. We do not want a scenario like we had in 2007/2008 post-election violence, but this is not to say, that as a project we have established a network of more than 30 Organizations within our district to prepare for any eventuality especially in regard to Gender Based Violence usually unleaseh on children and women. God help Kenya we pray.

My dear friends that is what we have for now. Please feel free to make enquiries on the project and we will respond in good time.

Thank you.