Universal Children's Day, 20 November-Ideas to celebrate the day with your students

"November 20th is an important date as it is the date in 1959 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. It is also the date in 1989 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child...Since 1990, Universal Children's Day also marks the anniversary of the date that the UN General Assembly adopted both the declaration and the convention on children's rights...This year the world is going blue! We're asking individuals, schools and corporates worldwide to go blue to help build a world where every child is in school, safe from harm and can fulfil their potential, and we know you do too. Going blue activities include: sharing our promo video for Children's day, signing the global petition and going blue in support of children's rights in social media and much, much more." (Source: http://www.un.org/en/events/childrenday/ )

Watch Unicef's promo video featuring actress Millie Bobby Brown, the famous YouTuber, Lilly Singh aka SuperWoman, actors, Liam Neeson and Orlando Bloomand and singer, Dua Lipa:

If you are interested in celebrating Universal Children's Rights Day you can find more information on United Nation site http://www.un.org/en/events/childrenday/ . You can also find 3 free, printable lesson plans on The World's Largest Lesson Plan (in partnership with Unicef)   http://worldslargestlesson.globalgoals.org/make-every-school-safe-to-learn/

Apart from these there are lots of and lots of resources online on how to raise awareness on human rights in general and children's rights for the day. I will introduce some tools and sites I have been using with my students for years.

• The lesson for younger students "What are child rights? "includes a video followed by two games and a transcript of the video as well. You can find it on British Council's site Learn English Kids.http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/video-zone/what-are-child-rights

• The integrated skills lesson "Children's rights" for older Primary students of 10-12 years old. All the material is downloadable in pdf format. You can find the lesson here. https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/childrens-rights
• " Color it Rights" colouring book and "Color it Rights" Teacher's Guide is ideal for very young children, even in pre-literate stage. You can find both here. https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/color-it-rights-childs-introduction-united-nations-convention-rights-child
• The video "Children's and young people's rights" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJggYdw3I0k
• You can also find games to play online at this site:  https://libraryresources.unog.ch/UDHRforchildren/activities

Also if you are interested in further research on the issue you can have a look at the following books. 

• Compasito, a manual on human rights education for children. I have been using various activities from the book and one of my favorites, which can be used to introduce the notion of children's rights with younger children, too, is Rabbits Rights (chapter 24 ).You can download the book for free here. http://www.eycb.coe.int/compasito/ You can also find the Greek edition here http://www.childcom.org.cy/ccr/ccr.nsf/All/E139A2CD27BCB462C2257AF3002ACD10?OpenDocument  Moreover, you can find a lot of information on Human Righs and Human Righs education in general on the two afore mentioned sites.
• ABC Teaching human Rights-Practical Activities for Primary and Secondary Schools. You can download the book here. http://www.ineesite.org/en/resources/abc_teaching_human_rights_-_practical_activities_for_primary_and_secondary

In our days it's more important than ever to raise children who are aware of human rights and become strong advocates of them as they grow up. It is our only hope against the cataclysmic changes our world has been experiencing for some years now.