Letter from the President

Dear readers,

I am thrilled at the opportunity to communicate with you through our website.

I am very excited, seeing as how you opened this site, that you are interested in children. I am duly excited about the arrival of this new website, as we had been trying for a long time to update our old one.

Sometimes it feels like our societies do not give children the attention they require. Consequently, many of our children are gravely malnourished, un-educated, sexually abused, involved in child labour or recruited as child soldiers.

These topics deserve all our attention as members of a civilized society. We must make every effort to completely eliminate these infractions on children’s rights. Great injustices are done to children and it is our duty to protect and shelter them, helping to provide them with normal lives.

Since 1989, the Convention on the Rights of the Child has invited and urged us to work towards our vision concerning children. We must see them as true builders of our society, not as dependents. Accordingly, the Convention stresses their rights as people to be protagonists, actively involved in every aspect of their lives.

As you probably already know, this new Convention dealing with children has been ratified by every country in the world except Somalia and the United States.

Defence for Children International (DCI) has chosen to take the course of action set forth in the Convention. We endeavor to aid and protect abused, exploited, and un-educated children, as you will see in the “Programmes” section of this site.

We lobby at the local, national and international levels to promote public policies that will help children’s rights become a reality. DCI is one of the only institutions that focuses on this type of work. Consequently, we need assistance not only financially, to combat the root causes of the alienation of children, but also to change adults’ views on the role of children in societies.

If you would like more information, or wish to contribute, please do not hesitate to contact us using the address indicated on this site.

I congratulate you for your interest in children’s issues.

With kind regards.

Jorge Vila
President
Defence for Children International