12 new children have joined the Hintalovon team, bringing the total number of child rights ambassadors to 18 as of September. For the sixth time, we have launched this volunteer program for young people aged 13-17, who help us to take children’s voices into account in our work.
Thinking about children is worth doing only with other children, which is why the teenagers who volunteer to support our work play such an important role in the Foundation. They volunteer at our Foundation for at least 1, but often up to 3 years, however it’s always very exciting when new children join us.
“Last year we worked with about 30 children, including 9 child rights ambassadors. Now the number of ambassadors has doubled and we are supporting them with the involvement of more new mentors. Never before has this team been so colorful and large, but this period also brings something new. Year after year, we’re improving the way we run our meetings to make them child-friendly, efficient and sustainable, and while last year our youngest member was 15 years old, we have now been joined by several 13-year-old boys and girls. We are excited to see what we learn from the children this year” – said Barbara Németh, our Child Participation Program Manager.
We involve the ambassadors not only occasionally or on specific issues, since the children are involved in all the activities of our program. As volunteer colleagues of the Foundation, we meet with them every two weeks and take their views into account when making decisions about projects.
The new ambassadors applied to us through an online questionnaire. Based on their application forms and personal interviews, we tried our best to select those who fit into the team and whose personal motivation is most in line with the Foundation’s activities. We held a team-building camp in Balatonboglár with the renewed team of children’s rights ambassadors, between August 25-27, 2022. All applicants were invited to join a common online group at the same time, and we hope to develop more casual cooperations with other children as well.
