The call is titled “Rights of the Child and Children’s Participation” (CERV-2024-CHILD). The call aims to respond to children’s current needs and challenges in the EU. It pays specific attention to the rights of children with specific needs and vulnerabilities, including those who fled the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. The call stresses the importance of taking into account gender differences and intersectionality in providing support to children. It focuses on the implementation of the actions and recommendations at EU, national and local levels of the EU Strategy on the rights of the child. Projects can be either national or transnational, but transnational projects are particularly encouraged.
Projects must address the following topics/priorities:
- Children’s mental health: Projects will not address the health dimension itself (e.g. diagnosis, treatment of mental health problems), but rather the dimension of prevention, protection and support to children with mental health issues in a multidisciplinary approach and in connection to the other areas on the rights of the child (e.g. participation, education, social inclusion, access to mental health support, protection, digital environment, etc.)
- Embedding a rights of the child perspective in actions at national and local level: This priority focuses on implementing mainstreaming tools for the rights of the child at national and local level.
- Children’s engagement and participation: Projects will aim to establish or strengthen inclusive and systemic mechanisms for child participation at local and national levels and may include specifically children who may be underrepresented in existing child participation mechanisms. Activities may include training and the production of training material for professionals, the design and implementation of child participation mechanisms in schools, city councils, children advisory boards, and the establishment of consultation mechanisms with children at local level, with an aim to join the Platform.
- Understanding democratic rights, which starts in childhood: This priority will focus on enhancing the understanding of democratic rights, which starts in childhood. Educational toolkits explaining the notions of democracy, the rule of law, fundamental rights and their interdependence would be important to that effect.
Activities may include:
- Mutual learning, trainings, exchange of good practices, cooperation and networking;
- Dissemination and awareness raising, including social media or press campaigns;
- Capacity building and training activities of national, regional and local authorities;
- Training activities and awareness raising sessions for children;
- Design and implementation of protocols, development of working methods and tools.
The design and implementation of actions should be done in cooperation with children, to make sure that the action is well tailored to children’s needs. As a good practice, organisations that already work with children could consult them on the project proposal and include reflections/references to this process in the applications. The voice of children can also be brought in based on available reports and documents recording children’s opinions and needs. All actions and activities, both at design, consultation and implementation phase, shall ensure that actions are adequate to the age and gender specific needs of children. Thus, applicants should conduct and include in their proposal a gender analysis, which maps the potential different impact of the project and its activities on children, including from a gender perspective.
The available budget for the call is EUR 12 000 000 and the EU grant applied for cannot be lower than EUR 100 000. The grant will be a lump sum grant with a funding rate of 90%.
The deadline for the submission is the 26 of March 2024 and the planned opening date for submitting the proposal is the 15th of November 2023. For more information, please visit the Commission’s website.
To learn more about current calls for proposals or Eurodiaconia’s funding events, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our Projects and EU Funding Officer Giorgia Signoretto at giorgia.signoretto@eurodiaconia.org.