South Africa: Fifth world summit on Media and Children set to kick off

Highway Africa News Agency

The long awaited world summit on the media and children will kick-off in South Africa towards the end of March 2007 to map out strategies on the representation of children in the media.

The conference is expected to address the representation of children in the media and how the media in general have contributed to the way children are seen. The summit will also seek ways and means to promote the involvement of children in producing their own images. At the centre of the debate will be how children could be involved in the process of producing images and programs for themselves.

Too very often, adults produce images for children and most of the time they do not reflect what children think, feel, and (dis)like. It is in this spirit that the 5th World Summit on the Media and Children(5thWSMC) is being organized and supported by many prominent organizations worldwide. The Summit will also explore Children's radio production and TV programs and see whether a Children's Movement will be necessary to make sure that Children produce their own TV and radio programs.

The 5th WSMC will also ask the question whether it is necessary for broadcasters to be further regulated and to investigate further developments with regards to children?s programming. And to understand the process on the development of a framework that will involve children in the production process.

Preparations for the 5thWSMC began with workshops in all South Africa?s provinces to sensitize Children on the power of the media and how the media work in society. The aim of the workshops was also to make Kidz aware of positive images about themselves - how to produce positive images of themselves - and how to derive positive feedback about themselves and give positive feedback to others.

The Kidz learned about the features of a newspaper - how to produce for print - how to plan a newsletter for high school pupils and how to produce for Online publication - how to produce for radio and television and were also asked to report on issues of interest to themselves to prepare them to report on the Summit in their own voices and in their own writing.

Pre-summit meetings Summit organizers hope to have training sessions with the Kidz before the conference starts - the aim is to make them aware of techniques in producing media products and how to consume the media - they will work as news producers and newsmakers during the Summit.

Post-summit Arrangements are underway to continue to work with Children to produce a weekly supplement to be distributed in one or two of South Africa?s weekend newspapers after the Summit.

The reason for this is to make sure that Children get involved in the production of news and images about themselves on sustainable and long term bases.

The Summit is also expected to look at possibilities for a Child Care legislation. In other, words a legislative mechanism to prevent the continued erosion of Children?s rights by the adult population may be necessary to muscle and empower Children's Movements to safeguard those rights. The envisaged policies are expected to cover the needs of disabled and vulnerable children as well.

Questions that keep arising however, have to do with how the mobile sector could be engaged in the process of promoting high quality programs for Children on their networks. There is also a need to forge links with the NEPAD programs for Children to harmonize the production of positive images about Children across the African continent.