Article 22: Children who move from their home country to another country as refugees (because it was not safe for them to stay there) should get help and protection and have the same rights as children born in that country.

Article 10: If a child lives in a different country than their parents, governments must let the child and parents travel so that they can stay in contact and be together.

Children are children are children, no matter where they are from. Also kids who have to flee their home country need protection and support, opportunities to learn and to play. IFM-SEI member organisations give them a place to simply be children and for a while forget the problems of their flight from home.

Kinderfreunde/Rote Falken is running the project ‘Connect’ for refugee children arriving to Austria. Here’s how they describe it:

For most of us, it is unimaginable to leave home and spend months fleeing across a continent - in constant uncertainty about what the future holds. In Europe, however, there is often only a long wait for refugees: lengthy asylum procedures, too little adequate accommodation, no access to education, no work, no meaningful leisure time activities. Children and adolescents are particularly affected by this situation. With ‘connect’ Die Kinderfreunde offer various educational and leisure activities for exactly these children and adolescents. With the connect.playrooms children find a framework in which they can learn together and from each other, in which they can learn about their rights and solve conflicts among themselves, in which they can play together and move around.

In addition to this active work for the children, it is important to us to formulate demands that we can implement on the political level. Because in the area of ​​flight and migration, children's rights are broken day by day.

Among other things, we demand:

• - Special protection for refugee children
• - No detention for children and adolescents
• - Human rights to stay for all children in Austria
• - Integration measures from the first day

Do you want to learn more? Check out our other post for 30 Days of Children's Rigts!

1. 1. Kick Off
2. 2. Article 7 & 8