Youth with alternative care experience have equal opportunities to develop, to be a voice and to make changes through involvement, empowerment and support.
The Little Fish will tell it how it is!
The importance of wellbeing for children in and from alternative care was representative of Big Fish looking after the Little Fish; a Big is someone responsible for guiding Little fish towards wellbeing and reaching their full potential. What adults, professionals, organisations or agencies are responsible for the wellbeing of children from alternative care? What does that responsibility look like? What resources support this relationship between young people and the adults around them? Is a Cardboard Box strong enough for all the resources so Big Fish can care for Little Fish.
This plenary pointed out some of the experiences and insights of Power4Youth members into identifying factors of their own wellbeing. It linked the theory of wellbeing and indicators of success to direct experiences of young people in and out from alternative care and explored if wellbeing can, is, or will be met by the Big Fish. As a European platform for young people, Power4Youth aims to offer a European perspective on young people in and from care. Power4Youth hopes to inspire the Big Fish to properly use their Cardboard Box to care for all the Little Fish. The plenary speech was delivered by Hava Ryustem from Bulgaria and Bernard Grima from Malta – youth cofounders and members of Power4Youth.
The presentation ended up with the Big Fish, Little Fish and the Cardboard Box dance. How anybody can stand still when the Big Fish Little Fish song is playing? Together with over 300 delegates from 25 countries across 4 continents we made the theatre go crazy. Brilliant!
Thanks IFCO for such an amazing opportunity.
For those of you who want to view the presentation, kindly refer to this link: IFCO Brighton Conference July 2010
The International Children’s Day is celebrated in numerous countries, usually (but not always) on June 1 each year.
Major global variants include an International Children’s Day on June 1 as adopted in the former Communist bloc, and a Universal Children’s Day on November 20, by United Nations recommendation. Many nations declare days for children on other dates.
Read more…
On this special International Children’s Day please spare a thought for the millions of invisible children worldwide who have been separated from their families by poverty and are living on the streets, in institutions or in forced labour. Poverty is a major cause of child separation and lifting a family out of poverty can make the difference between a child growing up in a loving family environment or growing up frightened and alone.
Power4Youth has been accepted to give a plenary speech at IFCO’s 2010 European Seminar Conference in Brighton, England this coming July (http://brighton2010.ifco.info). The Power4Youth – P4Y people that are will travel and deliver the speech are: Jean Kennedy from Ireland, Bernard Grima from Malta, and Hava Ryustem from Bulgaria.
The Plenary that P4Y will be giving is called ‘The Well Being of the Big Fish, Little Fish and the Cardboard Box’. It will talk about the theory of well-being and ask how people, adults, organisations surrounding young people with alternative care experience have (or can) support young people towards well-being, which is: to reach their full potential (P4Y’s Vision). The ‘Big Fish’ are the adults and organisations around young people with care expereince. The young people with care expereince are the ‘Little Fish’.
The plan is that Power4Youth will present some theory of well-being (how well-being is a ”whole” view of young people, their physical, emotional, mental, educational, developmental, spiritual and social well-being needs).
Family Day – May 15th is the UN International Day of Families
May 15th marks the United Nations’ International Day of Families. The yearly ceremony mirrors the significance that the global society is connected to families as basic units of societies in addition to its worry concerning their state of affairs around the globe. This day also offer an occasion to add to the facts of the economic, literary, social and demographic methods affecting families. It is highlighted that public observe themselves as part of their comprehensive family, including their ancestors and their descendants. That’s why children are very important in their society.
Times of Malta
Children have right to live within family – minister
Cynthia Busuttil reports
Children who had no hope of ever being reunited with their natural parents should be given up for adoption because they had the sacrosanct right to live within a family, Family Minister Dolores Cristina said yesterday.
Ms Cristina said she wanted to see the courts exercise more often their right to remove parental rights and give the children up for adoption.
“I would like to see this happening more because I believe that children have the right to live in a family and we have many families who would like to adopt,” she said.
In a report published on Tuesday, outgoing Children’s Commissioner Carmen Zammit said incompetent mothers and fathers who refused to reform should have their parental rights permanently removed.
She echoed the words of the former CEO of the Foundation for Social Welfare Services, Joe Gerada, who, in October 2008, insisted that failed parents should be forced to give their children up for adoption rather than condemn them to an institute for years.
Mrs Cristina said the law allowed for children to be permanently taken from their parents and given up for adoption. “Children should have the sacrosanct right to live within a family,” she insisted.
Ms Cristina said that, although fostering was a very good alternative to a natural family, there should also be other alternatives to children who spent many years living in an institution, never knowing what it meant to live in a family.
Time is also of the essence when taking such decisions. “I am not a social worker, a psychologist or an expert on children but they say that, even at a young age, by the time they are a year or 18 months, children would already have felt the absence of living in a family,” Mrs Cristina said.
Article taken from The Times of Malta