Council of Europe : Building a child-friendly Europe: Turning a vision into reality

On the 20th and 21st of November 2011, the Council of Europe partners gathered in Monaco again for the high-level conference on the Council of Europe Strategy for the Rights of the Child 2012-2015. The conference was hosted by the Principality of Monaco Under the Presidency of H.R.H. The Princess of Hanover. 

Cyprus was represented by Mr. Joseph Varughese, Director of “Hope For Children” UNCRC Policy Center who also hosted a workshop in order to draft the Council of Europe Strategy for the Rights of the Child 2012-2015. The workshop hosted by Mr. Joseph Varughese focused on how national NGOs and professional associations can support the Council of Europe strategy at national and local level and how the Council of Europe can better support NGO actions in member states. 

Along with this workshop, other workshops were hosted by international organizations’ directors who focused on themes such the implementation of the UNCRC (Ms Veronica Yates, Director, Children’s Rights Information Network CRIN), good practices of co-operation in INGO alliances and networks (Ms Mieke Schuurman, Director a.i. Eurochild) and the reinforcement of strategic co-operation between civil society and the Council of Europe (Mr Theo Noten, Delegate of eNASCO, ECPAT, Netherland).

Ms Marja Ruotanen (Director, Justice and Human Dignity, DG I – Human Rights and Rule of Law, Council of Europe) was the Moderator of these workshops.