Senegalese children bring song to the Charter and children’s rights

On 16 June 2007, CERPAC together with a young people’s group organized a children’s ceremony awarding the best students from a neighborhood in Guédiawaye (a town in the Dakar Region of Senegal). The date was not chosen at random: the Day of the African Child has been celebrated on 16 June every year since 1991, to commemorate the massacre of hundreds of children during a protest march in Soweto (South Africa) by the apartheid government on 16 June 1976. The day has a different theme every year:
 2005: African orphans: our collective responsibility;
 2006: Protecting children against violence;
 2007: Combat child trafficking. Since this is a phenomenon that does not exist in Senegal, we focused our ceremony on children’s rights. The children spent several hours rehearsing sketches and a rap version of the Charter of Human Responsibilities:

To perform for their parents on 16 June (extract):

The children’s choir also sung the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, an international text setting out children’s rights: