In which we go to the Festival des droits de l'enfant

Twenty years ago, the United Nations adopted the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and it was ratified by most of the world. (I shall remain mum on which two have failed to ratify it.) To celebrate, the city of Fontenay-sous-Bois (and the rest of France) has been having child centered activities for the last fifteen days. There have been concerts, special movie showings, discussion groups, and other numerous other things going on. (Here I would link to the program if I could find it online. Evidently it was either never available online, or perhaps it's already been taken down.)

Thursday Sapphire and Ezio went with their class, as well as lots of other classes from lots of other schools, to the Salle Jacques Brel, which is basically a big multipurpose room. They use it for concerts and conventiony stuff, and probably some other things as well. In any case, the students were counted off into groups and sent off to various centers to explore, and to learn a little bit about what the UN Convention says. Ezio made a very cool mask (think masquerade ball shape) with lots of glittery stickers and feathers as part of the Right to Travel/Vacation station. He also got to do some painting on fabric, though I'm not entirely clear as to what that was about. Sapphire got to make a flag as part of the Right to National Identity station. She also got to help design a city as part of the Right to Adequate Housing station.

After school, they very excitedly informed me that the activities would be available all day on Saturday as well, and could we please go to them because Sapphire had really wanted to make a mask because that would have been much cooler, and Ezio would really have rather made a flag and Cherry would have loved playing in the house set up, and. . .. (They did breathe eventually.) So after lunch today we set out for the Salle Jacques Brel, where each child was given a map to guide them through the activies. We started out at the Right to Travel, where Sapphire made a lei (a Hawaiian necklace, she called it), and Cherry and Ezio were mostly bored. (Unfortunately, Ezio is not very interested in crafty stuff, and Cherry does not yet have the dexterity to do things with pointy needles.) Then we headed over to the play house/store area for the Right to Play. Sapphire wanted to do another craft, and I had noticed a station (Right to an Identity) where they were making dolls out of empty water bottles, newspapers, and scraps of cloth. So we headed over there. Sapphire ended up making a really pretty cool doll, though it took her forever to do it. Meanwhile, Cherry and Ezio colored self portraits onto stick figures. I was impressed to see that Cherry actually mostly colored in the lines for the eyes, and Ezio is beginning to draw very nicely, even if he doesn't like doing it very much. Afterwards we spent a little more time in the playhouse, and then headed home.