Child Rights Heroes & changemakers

Cindy Blackstock

Thích Nu Minh Tú

Vietnam Bangladesh Canada

Mohammed has been fighting for 25 years for the right of children, and especially girls, to go to school, despite flooding and increased poverty that have been made worse by the climate crisis. Every year thousands of schools and routes to school are destroyed by flooding in Bangladesh. Schooling for millions of children is affected and many of them never return to school. Instead they are forced to start working, while girls are often married off. Mohammed’s idea for floating schools has spread throughout Bangladesh and to eight other countries.

Mohammed and his organisation are helping to strengthen the rights of the child and to achieve the global goals as follows:

• 26 floating schools have provided an education to 22,000 children to date.

• The children are collected from their homes, so that they can go to school even if the roads are under water.

• Operating floating libraries and health clinics, and vocational training for 15,000 young women.

• Running girls’ rights clubs that work to promote girls’ rights and to combat child marriage.

Cindy has been fighting for 30 years for equal rights for Indigenous children to get a good education, be healthy, grow up in a safe, loving home and be proud of their language and culture. Hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children in Canada suffer discrimination because of their descent. For over 100 years, these children, who were known at that time as ‘Indians’, were taken from their families to residential schools, where they would be made to forget their language and culture. Many got sick and thousands died. Even today, Indigenous families get separated, and the children are poorer, with inferior schools and healthcare.

Cindy and her organisation are helping to strengthen the rights of the child and to achieve the global goals as follows:

• Pursuing legal cases to ensure the government of Canada complies with legislation and establishes more child-friendly laws.

• Creating change that has provided better schools, equal health and medical care and a safer childhood for 165,000 First Nations children and other Indigenous children.

• Raising awareness about history and the present situation to empower children to fight for their own and others’ rights.

Minh Tú has been fighting for orphans, children whose families cannot afford to support them and poor children who are unable to go to school for 49 years. She grew up during decades of war and saw how the violence resulted in great poverty, famine and millions of orphaned and homeless children. This led her to become a Buddhist nun, working to help and empower vulnerable children. There are still many children in Vietnam today who need support owing to poverty, flooding and accidents. There are also those whose parents have made the tough decision to give up their child.

Minh Tú is helping to strengthen the rights of the child and to achieve the global goals as follows:

• Providing security, love, medicines, healthcare and a place to play.

• Providing assistance in the form of obtaining birth certificates and naming children so they can go to school, get school materials, uniforms and grants for higher education.

• Supporting children with special needs.

• Searching for children’s biological families, and reuniting them where possible.

• Teaching the children life skills so that they can have a good life and be self-reliant.