World Children’s Day was first established in 1954 and is celebrated on 20 November each year to promote international togetherness, awareness among children worldwide, and improving children’s welfare.
This year, we join the celebration to champion the amazing potential of each child, regardless of their differences, appearance, coloring, or disability. Children with albinism often face discrimination due to their appearance and struggle to cope with stigma, bullying, and exclusion in many spheres of their lives. We, the adults, have a great responsibility to protect and support children by creating the conditions that will help them to thrive – to meet and exceed all positive expectations. This includes reducing stigma everywhere by raising awareness about inclusion. Above all, it means we have to lead by our own example: to respect and protect the dignity of all children everywhere.
Here at the Africa Albinism Network, we are committed to promoting knowledge about, as well as concrete action to promote the human rights of every person, particularly of the most vulnerable such as children. We do so by promoting the implementation of the African Union Plan of Action which urges Governments to carry out particular measures to protect children with albinism from all violence including harmful practices – from bullying to ritual attacks. The same plan also calls upon African governments to support them in the classroom with reasonable accommodation measures such as adaptive devices for their low vision and to protect them from skin cancer. We urge parents, family, and community members to do their part by actively including children with albinism in all levels of activity in which they would include any other child – with or without physical or other differences. We celebrate all those families and communities that have done so successfully, raising children who are servant leaders including successful examples in the albinism community. We look forward to the replication of these good actions everywhere so that the days of discrimination and stigma toward children with albinism – and indeed all children – will become a faint memory.
We’re using this key moment to bring into sharp focus the issues faced by children with albinism in Africa—and what we can do about it. Join us as we mark World Children’s Day 2022.
Please use this social media toolkit to help guide your social media activity for your Children’s Day participation
