Strategic Plan

This 2012-2016 Strategic plan for the Rights of the Child Commission (RCC) provides for, among other things, the framework for action that seeks to facilitate/guide the implementation of the constitutional mandate of the Commission, and to that end, contribute to greater results for children throughout Guyana.

Note must be made, that this plan is for the RCC – it is not a plan of action for children, nor does it seek to articulate actions that are within the purview of State actors (e.g. direct service delivery). The plan is guided by and uses as its key tools/strategies the core functions as articulated in accordance with its constitutional mandate. These are as follows: promoting and advocating for the rights of children- including with particular emphasis on the “best interestss of the child “principle as provided for in Article 38 B of the Guyana Constitution, monitoring the rights of children (in accordance with the Guyana Constitution and its laws, in particular children’s laws, and with regard to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its two Optional Protocols1) and investigating and making recommendations on policies, procedures and practices of organisations, bodies and institutions in order to promote and protect the rights of the child.

Every partner – Government, Civil Society, Development agency, other Rights Commissions, Media, Family and child can contribute to fulfilling the actions set out in this plan whether through individual or collective advocacy with the Commission.

To that end, the RCC will, among other measures, have to be both physically and geographically accessible to all children and proactively reach out to all groups of children, in particular the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, such as (but not limited to) children in care or detention, children from indigenous groups, children with disabilities, children living in poverty, child labourers, children infected and affected by HIV, street children and children with special needs in areas such as culture, language, health and education.

This also means that the RCC will devise specially tailored consultation programmes and imaginative communication strategies to reach this population given the multi-dimensional nature of issues which affect children, especially those children who are considerably prone to a greater degree of vulnerability due to geographic location/isolation (place of residence), children who reside in poor households, children who may be discriminated against due to gender and or status (e.g. disabled children), and/ or made doubly vulnerable due to their culture, racial, ethnic or religious affiliations and sexual orientation (especially in the case of adolescents).

Strategic Plan Areas

1. Introduction: this provides a background on the Rights Commissions, outlines the constitutional and founding principles of the RCC and provides a summary of the key clientele of the Commission;
2. Vision and Mission Statement: the mission and vision statement of the RCC has as the common thread, the need for equity in the delivery of the rights agenda for children;
3. Overview of Children’s rights - in the context of the Plan and work of the Commission;
4. Strategic Analysis of both the “internal and external” environment that will influence the work of the Commission. The Commission will need to work with both “traditional” and “non-traditional” partners who are actively engaged in fulfilling children’s rights and to engage those individuals/organisations who are not in engaged in the process so far; and
5. Key Strategies and Priorities of the RCC: use of evidence-based advocacy and research, forging partnerships, alliances, and joint ventures, capacity building, targeted volunteer engagement strategies; promotion of governance and leadership; Law/Policy reform to support the rights of children; monitoring/investigation; strengthening of planning function of the RCC; and enhancing/promoting the image of the RCC.