Makista is committed to raise awareness for children’s rights in schools and educational institutions.

“I want to be accepted as I am!”

Since 2000, the non-profit association Makista e.V. has been committed to the realization of children’s rights in schools and educational institutions. Makista is convinced that children and young people should know their rights in accordance with the UN Convention. To do so, in 2022, Makista has offered 30 training events, 17 workshops, and five educational days, expert conferences, participation forums, as well as educational material.

In March 2022, Makista and “Violence Prevention and Democracy Learning” – a project assigned from Hessian Ministry of Culture – paid tribute to five Hessian schools, which have been admitted to the network of children’s law schools in Hesse. In November, another five schools will be starting the corresponding training programme, soon.

Project KindGeRecht

The city of Butzbach has been supporting the project “KindGeRecht. Children’s rights and democracy in Hessian’s educational institutions” from the beginning. They installed a youth parliament representing all primary schools, which is meeting on a regular basis. The children’s influence in Butzbach is undeniable: The children’s interests are already integrated into the cityscape – the mayor has been learning about missing trash bins, and where trees are to be planted.

Training courses, project days, and conferences

Together with the “School Network for Democracy Promotion and Radicalization Prevention in the City and District of Offenbach,” Makista designed the training “Social prerequisites for successful participation”. The Sportjugend Hessen focussed The UN Convention of Children’s rights on a project day. Makista also supported the handball association HSG Hanau with a democracy project and participated in co-operation with communes like Butzbach or Wetzlar as well as schools, in the ChildGeRecht project on World Children’s Day.

In May 2022 Makista co-initiated with the Evangelische Akademie Hofgeismar the conference “Becoming KindGeRecht! Children’s law in school and kindergarden”. Makista has inspired the Citiy of Langen to” We design education in Langen “and, Filderstadt to a specialist day for all kindergarten professionals in September.

Publications

The brochure “I want to be accepted as I am” (2022) is supporting teachers and educational specialists to integrate children’s rights into everyday pedagogical life. For this purpose, various workshops were conducted.

The special issue “Democracy Building, Children’s Rights, and Violence Prevention”, a reference framework, provides guidelines on how to integrate democratic processes in everyday’s school life. Besides, many articles have been published.