Children’s Week – Students share their artworks to communicate the message of Children’s Rights.

This week is Children’s Week – celebrating the rights of all children to enjoy childhood. In this entry we have selected a shortlist of artworks submitted to us by year nine Visual Communication Design students from Cranbourne East Secondary College in Victoria, Australia. Under the tutelage of their teacher Caitlin Salomons, students were encouraged to conceptualise one or more of the rights described in the United Nations Charter of Rights for Children.

A group of our staff were honoured to receive have the opportunity to select several of the submitted artworks to share with our prosody readers, along with the artists own description of their work. We hope they inspire you as they did us.

‘The Face Behind the Bars’

Artist: Kodee

Articles 12-14 talk about children’s rights to communicate and share what they think or believe. My poster with the jail cell bars and empty speech bubble represents this right to speech but highlights how some children are ‘locked out’ from that freedom, or simply ignored making it as though they never spoke in the first place. The jail cell bars also highlight the fact that there are children who get locked up or punished for exercising their right to communicate.

‘Watercolour Fight’

Artist: Nida

My design reflects equality among all people. The words ‘Fight for Those who can’t explains that we should fight for those who are unable to do so. The colour blue is representing the right that children should be protected from sexual assault. The colour blue stands for a sexual assault organization, so using that indicated one of my rights. Overall my message was that we should protect those who can’t protect themselves. All children deserve the same rights no matter where or who they are by fighting for those who can’t speak up we can change the futures of many of those kids.

‘Stop Abuse’

Artist: Pandora

There are several rights that talk about the right to be safe from all kinds of abuse, including physical and verbal. I chose to focus my poster around these rights – using the stop gesture of a hand as well as the bold red words to urge viewers to do their part to help stop the abuse of children.

‘Monster Puppeteer’

Artist: Hailey

Article 31 states that all children should have the right to relax, play and to join in a wide range of leisure activities. With my painting I was trying to communicate that many children do not have any power or control over their lives just like a puppet has no control over their actions. The dark controlling figure represents a parent, guardian or even different governing bodies lording their power over children, failing to allow them their right to play and relax.

‘Children on the World’

Artist: Gurleen

With my poster I was trying to communicate the rights of a normal human child. I drew them all standing on top of the earth, rather than just one country, as I wanted to communicate that although we are all different, coming from different countries, in the end we are all humans and we should all share in equal rights.

‘Know the Difference’

Artist: Nikki

The home is meant to be a safe and welcoming place to be able to come to, where there is no yelling or physically harming the child – it should not be a place where children are abused. If abuse happens the child could grow up to be traumatized, not being able to trust anyone, because they are scared of being abused at home.

‘All Children’

Artist: Harshad

In my poster I was trying to communicate the message that the world should spread children’s rights around the world, ensuring that every person in the world knows they exist and understands their responsibility to uphold and protect them. This is why I chose the different colours, to represent the different nations.

‘Children have rights, follow them’

Artist: Shannon

In my poster I was trying to communicate two messages. The first message was that kids have rights and that they need to be followed. Prior to doing this project I had no idea that there was a list of children’s rights and because of this I thought it was an important message to send out to everyone – the fact that there is this list of rights for children and that everyone needs to follow them. The second message I was trying to communicate was what some of the rights are. The three rights I chose to include in my poster were rights that really stood out to me and rights I thought were important for people to see and be aware of.

‘Freedom of Religion’

Artist: Maseera

The poster that I created was to demonstrate how significant children rights are and how they need to be taken into consideration. I was trying to prove and convey the message that all children across the world deserve their rights. My aim was to let children know they have several rights so they are able to spread it across to those children who aren’t aware of what they’ve got. I tried to illustrate that every child has a right to choose and live their own way of life. The poster was designed to let people know that we all should stand together for and with children to provide them with the best.

‘Education is a Source of Power’

Artist Name: Audrey

With my design I am trying to communicate that anyone in the world should have a right to an education. The right to seek knowledge of anything. I believe education can get people somewhere in life and help give them something to contribute to society. I knew somebody who grew up in a very poor family but they worked hard and are now an engineer. There are even many stories of unfortunate people around the world becoming successful, thanks to having an education. It’s a source of power.

‘Blue Haired Girl’

Artist: Samaya

Violence and abuse, along with its accompanying suffering, is happening all around the world. In my poster I wanted to show that no matter where a child is, they may be suffering from these horrible experiences. The blood was to represent physical abuse, whilst verbal abuse was represented by the heart – with the rose showing how fragile our heart can be. The combination of the anime hairstyle from Japan and the facial features of a western girl helps show different cultures and how abuse is occurring all around the world, not just in poor countries.

What are you doing for Children’s Week? We hope this post encourages you to also ‘get creative’ in helping children understand their rights.

N.B We have published these artworks with permission from the artists involved. They remain the property of each artist and cannot be reproduced without permission.