This event is to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child and World Children’s Day. This is a conference that has been organised by children for children. It is unique as a steering committee, made up of primary school-aged children has been involved in all aspects of the decision-making process. Children will be front and centre in this event, with ***** guests taking on more of a supportive role in addressing the children’s questions and engaging with their ideas. Our logo, VOICE represents, ‘Voicing Our Ideas for Children Everywhere’ and this year’s theme, ‘Children’s voice 4 change: it’s our future’ was chosen by the steering committee children. How much does it cost to attend? The conference does not cost any money to attend, but instead children pay to attend by submitting their ideas in the form of a creative work that shows what is personally important to them. How can children participate? An individual child or a group of children can participate in this conference in two ways; through (1) a live presentation (in person), or (2) a creative work (to be shown on the big screen during the conference). (1) Live presentation If your child would like to present in person, he or she is invited to submit a paragraph of 150 words, with registration, that describes the topic or issue that requires a solution, and why it is personally important to them. A high level of creativity is encouraged in the way the message is presented. Multimedia can be used to support the message. Presenters should aim to captivate the attention of an audience which will be largely made up of children. Presenters should also be prepared to speak to a range of influential guests, plus an audience of up to 350 people. Presentations need to be no longer than 5 minutes. A video of the proposed presentation should be submitted by 11th October. Details of how to upload these videos will be provided prior to this date. All presentations will be reviewed by the steering committee children who will select a range of submissions to be presented in person at the conference. Successful submissions will be announced by 20th October to allow fine-tuning of the live presentation. Feedback will be provided. An opportunity for a dress rehearsal style run-through will be provided the day before the conference, if your child would like to practice in the venue. If the submission is not selected for this part of the conference, it can be shortened and submitted as a creative work (see details below). The aim is for all children attending the conference to have their voices heard in some way on the day. Kids, what should you do if you want to present in person? Ask your parent or guardian to register and submit your 150-word paragraph explaining what you would like to present. Work out the details of what you would like to present, practice it and make a video of it. Upload this by 11th October. If you are selected to present in person, practice to make it perfect. Don’t forget to make it fun for the other kids to watch! If you are not selected to present in person, change the format a little and present your idea in the ‘creative work’ section. (2) Creative work All children who register for the conference will be invited to prepare a creative work that can be communicated in an interesting way (for example, a drawing, sound recording, dance, poem, song, animation, cartoon, podcast or video) to the other children attending the conference. We envisage that children would work with their parent(s), guardians or teachers to identify a matter that is important to them that draws from their own personal observations or experience in their local context. Children would then use a creative means to communicate how this issue relates to the wider world, and why this issue needs to be solved. We suggest that children look at the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals ideas and information to support their submission. Your child’s creative work needs to be submitted electronically and should be no longer than 60 seconds in length to ensure there will be time for all children’s ‘voices’ to be heard on the day of the conference. Creative works will be shown on the big screen during the conference and will contribute to a Children’s Declaration that will be collated and presented to government after the conference. Some submissions may also be used on the conference website, as part of research related to the conference or by UWA or UNICEF for similar purposes. For these reasons, it is important that only your child’s first name appears on the creative work submitted. Please register as early as possible, providing an indication of your child’s intent to submit a creative work and what that might look like. Please write around 150 words. This can change as your child’s ideas evolve. Creative works can be uploaded until 11th October. Details of how to do this will be provided prior to this date. Attendance and registration A parent or guardian must accompany their child to the event and register, however there is a maximum of three tickets per family (one ticket for the child attending, at least one parent/guardian and an additional ticket). The venue holds around 350 people, so this means that we are limited to 100 child attendees. Please register as soon as possible to secure your tickets. Further information If you would like more information or you have questions about this event please do not hesitate to contact either Dr Fiona Mayne (08 6488 1490) or Dr Gemma Scarparolo (08 6488 2385) or view the website at