Ramallah: among  series of activities carried out by the Human Rights and Democracy Media Center "SHAMS", a workshop on child rights in international and national agreements and conventions has been held in the village of Beit Ijza- Jerusalem governorate, the workshop was attended by large group of local residents and interested audience. In the beginning of the workshop Ms. Neveen Murrar introduced the different activities of the center and the importance to run a constructive dialogue among different groups and cultures and about the importance of democracy education for children and the necessity to build a generation capable of meeting challenges, and to lay the foundation to instill values human rights and freedoms within the society.

Then the floor was given to the lecturer Ms. Intesar Hamdan who said that education is a set of integrated elements to enable the children to think which resembled an integrated system of values and experiences to ensure the child s right to participate his role in delineating his needs in the education system and practice the choice option of some educational activities.

Education is the process of transmission of the communities values, beliefs and experiences for the new generations, taking into the consideration lessons learned from the past  in order to correct mistakes by opening the way for future generations to provide solutions and suggestions and relies on education and cultural development as a platform and as an essential ground for the overall development of any society seeks to progress on the spirit of common initiatives and acceptance of others and dialogue.

Ms. Hamdan said that democracy that we seek must be based on law, justice, freedom and human dignity and based on human rights principles and by applying equal opportunities with disregard to sex or any other aspects.

She added that getting the children to involve with democratic experiments carried out by the children themselves will instill values of democracy in their minds such as practicing an electoral process in a democratic atmosphere and more importantly, accept the results, and this experience definitely will affect the behavior of these children when become matures.

Ms.Hamdan talked about the media and its role in influencing child-rearing and viewed to be the most dangerous instrument specially television which greatly impacts the children given the decline in oral communication between members of the community and within the family members, the influence of television on children may exceed or equivalent to the role of parents. Time spent by the child in front of TV exceeds hours spent in any other business or activities. Thus we can say that television is contributing significantly to the formulation of thinking of children, and shaping their cultural and intellectual trends, and patterns of social behavior that characterizes their personality.

Ms.Hamdan stressed that the most dangerous in Arab media is that Arab media being unidirectional, meaning that those in charge in preparing the news material solely decide what is useful and what is not beneficial to the individual and society without taking into consideration whether the information materials they present resemble people s choice and aspiration and as it is assumed that media should mirror the image of the society, values , opinions and ideas and customs and traditions of the society.

At the end of the workshop participants recommended the need to ensure the right of children participation to be able to form student unions based on democratic elections, and to participate in the general election for those who reach the age of eighteen, and contribute to the decisions and actions that affect their lives and communities. And encourage the media to focus on children Rights including reproductive health - early marriage - child labor - Juvenile Justice and listen to the views of children regarding the school curriculum, and participation in social work and volunteerism and joining summer camps and other sports activities, and inculcate positive values that benefit their societies.