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Panel Discussion “Upholding the Right to Learn and Play for Young Refugees in Southeast Asia”
23 November, 2019 @ 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
World Children’s Day, held on November 20th each year, celebrates the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). This year, 2019, marks thirty years since the convention was introduced in 1989, and SEA Junction would like to mark the occasion on Saturday, November 23rd, with children’s activities, international youth performances, and a panel discussion focusing on refugee children and their right to play and education.
Children from migrant and refugee backgrounds face a number of challenges in Thailand and the wider region. Most countries in Southeast Asia recognize the importance of international Education for All, UNCRC and Sustainable Development Goal Four – Education 2030 agendas stating that all children have a legal right to access primary and early secondary school education, regardless of race, disability, ethnicity and citizenship status. In practice, however, there are still many gaps in their effective implementation and financial, cultural and logistic barriers makes it difficult, if not impossible enrollment in formal education. For these reasons, many refugee children and young people attend informal learning centers, usually run by volunteers with minimal resources and offering little opportunity to achieve recognized qualifications, so valuable to a young person’s future career prospects. In addition to all these issues, refugees have no legal status, so they are constantly at risk of being arrested and detained indefinitely. Sometimes parents are afraid to let their children go to school, and go outside to play, in case they are spotted and either heavily fined or arrested. This fear puts a huge strain on a young person’s emotional and mental health, and limits their physical and cognitive development.
To stress the importance of more inclusive policies and interventions for refugee children SEA Junction together with concerned individual and institutional partners will hold a range of activities. A food and craft bazaar will be organized for refugee and rights organizations to profile their products and raise some funds. Creative activities for children will also be organized including making together a mural painting on the theme and henna painting.
To end the program, a panel discussion will focus on three of the articles in the UNCRC: article 22 on the protection of refugee children; article 28 on the right to education; and article 31 on the right to leisure, play and culture. The invited panelists will explore what these rights mean; how they are put into practice in the context of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia; what are the barriers to and opportunities for their implementation; and what are some of the initiatives trying to find positive approaches and solutions to the effective implementation of the right to play, leisure, culture and education for urban refugee children living in extended exile in Southeast Asia.
Agenda for the Day
11am – 7pm:
Bazaar selling food and crafts in combination with SEA Junction Mini Book and Craft Fair
11am – 2pm:
Children’s creative activities
- Mural design themed on the right to education, culture and play
- Henna skin painting
2.30 pm- 3.30 pm:
International youth performances (tentative)
- Dancers from Vietnam, Pakistan and Sri Lanka
- Musician from Pakistan
5-7pm:
Panel discussion “Upholding the Right to Learn and Play for Young Refugees in Southeast Asia”
- Hartini Zainuddin, founder of Yayasan Chow Kit and independent consultant
- Rebecca Warren, independent expert on refugee education in Bangkok
- Niroshan founder of Cedar Learning Centre, Thailand
- Ariane Alana, Roshan Learning Centre, Indonesia
Short bios
Hartini Zainudin
Hartini is the founder of Yayasan Chow Kit, a 24-hour crisis centre based in Malaysia for at-risk Children which provides essential meals and educational programmes for the children, and vice president of Voice of the Children. In addition, she has tirelessly engaged in numerous projects and campaigns to advocate on children’s issues for the last 20 years. With her PhD from Columbia University, she was recently appointed as a UN consultant.
Rebecca Warren
Rebecca is a teacher and educational researcher, completing her doctoral thesis on the educational experiences of young refugees living in extended exile in Bangkok. The research is an ethnographic narrative exploring the backgrounds, needs, opportunities and aspirations of young urban refugees from Pakistan, Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq, Sudan and Sri Lanka in Thailand.
Niroshan
Niroshan is the founder and director of Cedar Learning Centre (CLC). The Center began in 2018 as a small Bangkok-based refugee initiative with the aim of providing education and humanitarian aid for refugee children and families most in need. Being a refugee himself, Niroshan has researched problems faced by the refugee community here in Bangkok and so was motivated to help his people and fellow refugees. He is currently also working as the Migration & Community Liaison Officer for a charity organization.
Ariane Alana
Ariane is a teacher with 10 years of experience. She started working with refugees in 2016 and is currently a Lead Teacher and Academic Manager at Roshan Learning Center in Jakarta, Indonesia. The Center serves over 200 asylum seekers and refugees, providing preschool to secondary classes for children and youth, as well as English classes for adults. Ariane’s primary interests are pedagogy for refugee children as well as community engagement of young refugee women.
The event is free, but donations are most welcome to enable SEA Junction to continue its activities and keep events accessible to the public.
For information/reservation for our events please email southeastasiajunction@gmail.com or phone/wa: +66970024140
Organizers:
SEA Junction, OUR Venue to Connect on Southeast Asia (see https://seajunction.org)
SEA Junction aims to foster understanding and appreciation of Southeast Asia in all its socio-cultural dimensions –from arts and lifestyles to economy and development. Conveniently located at Room 408 of the Bangkok Arts and Culture Centre or BACC (across MBK, BTS National Stadium) SEA junction facilitates public access to knowledge resources and exchanges among students, practitioners and Southeast Asia lovers. For more information see seajunction.org and join the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1693055870976440/
TIFA Foundation
A grant making institutions working for human rights and democracy in Indonesia and supporting civil society to work in key fields like access to information, community and independent media, legal aid, anti-corruption, and minority rights. In recognition of the importance of placing Indonesia within the broader regional context, since 2016 Tifa Foundation has started the Regional Hub program cooperating with the New Mandala and now with SEA Junction. For more information see http://www.tifafoundation.org/en/ (in Indonesian).
