The European Union is happy to be a part of the project which helps building systems that will ensure adequate social protection policies, social protection and social inclusion of children and families in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said the Head of the Operations Section for Justice and Home Affairs, Public Administraiton Reform at the EU Delegation in BiH, Maria Farrar-Hockley, during the award ceremony for the most successful participants of the competition “Wish a better childhood”, held on Wednesday in Sarajevo.
The competition was organised within the project „Strengthening the social inclusion and social protection of children in Bosnia and Herzegovina” financed by the European Union with 4,100,000 Euros. The Kingdom of Norway Government and the Great Britain Governmental Department for International Development (UKAID) have also participated in financing.
The entire project “Strengthening the social inclusion and social protection of children in Bosnia and Herzegovina” is of great importance for all the children in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The importance of today’s activity and the award game itself is huge because the children made use of their knowledge and expressed their wishes and demands through internet”, stressed Maria Farrar-Hockley, adding she hoped the project would help children to have better future.
The children have been awarded with 20 awards. Emina Basara from Bugojno won the first place and a laptop computer. The second place and a camera went to Amela Čehić from Sarajevo, while Katarina Šimić from Mostar took the third place and a mobile phone.
Over 300 wishes came to the web page, and over 13.000 children and parents joined the Facebook page. The children have shown to have a big heart, they unselfishly wanted their friends to have snack, they wanted the world without hungry children, to have good education and peace.
According to the UNICEF Resident Representative Florence Bauer, the UNICEF has started this project of collecting children wishes in 2009 at the Kids Festival and has continued collecting them in municipalities and finally on the web page and facebook as the Wall of Children Wishes.
“There is a great connection between the children wishes and their rights. The children mainly wish better education, the world without violence and healthy nutrition”, said Bauer.
She added that children knew very well what their rights were and what they wished for, they only needed the space to present their wishes.
The competition „Wish a better childhood” is one of the activities of the project “Strengthening the social inclusion and social protection of children in Bosnia and Herzegovina” . The project aims to strenghten social protection and inclusion of children through improvment of existing public policy frames, enhancement of management structure and coordnation of social protection and inclusion on all levels of government as well as further development of municipal models of social protection and inclusion.
More infromation available at:
http://www.unicef.org/bih/ba/protection_inclusion_13551.html
