Deadline: 29-Apr-25
The European Commission (EC) is accepting proposals for the Rights of the Child and Children’s Participation Programme under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Value Programme (CERV).
Objective
- Supporting, advancing and implementing comprehensive policies to protect and promote the rights of the child, including the right to participate.
Themes
- This call focuses on the implementation of the actions and recommendations at EU, national and local levels of the EU Strategy on the rights of the child. It aims at responding to children’s current needs and challenges in the EU. It pays attention to the rights of children with specific needs and vulnerabilities, including those who fled the Russian’s war of aggression against Ukraine. The call stresses the importance of taking into account gender differences and intersectionality in providing support to children.
- All proposals must embrace and respect a child rights-based approach and be clearly grounded in the EU Charter of Fundamental rights and the UN Convention on the rights of the child (UNCRC).
Priorities
- Applicants should clearly indicate in their proposal which priority they intend to address. Projects must address one of the following priorities:
- Priority 1 – Children’s rights in the digital age
- The digital landscape in which children grow up today can both support and hinder the fulfilment of their rights. As children increasingly interact with a variety of online platforms, tools, and services, they gain access to educational and social opportunities. However, this also exposes them to potential risks such as harassment, cyberbullying, misinformation, misleading and addictive commercial practices, data privacy concerns, harmful or illegal content, and even exploitation, even more so with the rapid development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI). Moreover, early and prolonged exposure to digital environments and social media can profoundly affect children’s mental health.
- This priority addresses multiple dimensions of empowering children online, preventing and protecting children’s rights as well as their mental health and well-being in the digital world notably in relation to cyberbullying, including:
- Promoting children’s digital literacy: Children should be empowered and equipped with the skills needed to navigate the digital world safely and responsibly. Starting from their needs, projects should work directly with children in developing tools and competences to allow them to learn, connect and be active and informed contributors in shaping the world around them. This includes increasing children’s skills to recognise potential risks such as cyberbullying, misinformation, misleading commercial practices, manage privacy settings, being aware of inappropriate or harmful content, including violence, hate speech, or online grooming.
- Raising awareness of children’s rights online among child users, their communities, children’s rights civil society organisations, ICT professionals and digital service providers: Children want to interact freely online but are concerned over their safety. Online platforms should be designed with children’s safety and inclusivity as a priority. To achieve this, knowledge of children’s rights, the need for inclusive, non-discriminatory, objective and age-appropriate tools and information should ideally be integrated in the educational pathways of future ICT students and (future) tech developers.
- Reducing the negative impact of digital use on children’s well-being: Engaging children in conversations about their digital habits—such as social media use, screen time, smartphone use in schools, and online social interactions—can help identify how these activities affect their concentration, learning, relationships and overall mental health and well-being. Projects should involve children in developing strategies and tools to promote healthy digital habits, prevent and address issues like cyberbullying, social media pressures and the negative effects of online engagement on their emotional and psychological well-being, whilst reducing stigma over mental health problems.
- Priority 2 – Children’s engagement and participation
- With this priority, the Commission aims to promote an inclusive and systemic participation of children in the democratic life at the local, national and EU levels to ensure that children’s voices are heard and listened to, especially in matters that affect them. This is in line with the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child – notably the establishment of the EU Children Participation Platform (the Platform). Projects submitted under this priority will aim at establishing or strengthening inclusive and systemic mechanisms for child participation at local and national levels.
- The mechanisms proposed by applicants should make an effort to specifically include children who are often underrepresented in child participation mechanisms, such as children in situations of multiple vulnerabilities, children with a disadvantaged socioeconomic background, children with disabilities, migrant and refugee children, children from minority groups, children from rural areas and children in institutions, among others.
- Priority 3 – Embedding a right of the child perspective in actions at national and local level
- Integrating children’s rights in all relevant areas of policy and practice, ensuring their interests are prioritised across sectors and institutions is essential to achieve the overall objectives of the EU Strategy on the rights of the child. This priority focuses on implementing mainstreaming tools for the promotion and protection on the rights of the child at national and local level. Projects should ensure that these tools become fully integrated in policy and practices to ensure a systematic approach, including by:
- developing, monitoring and evaluating strategies on the rights of the child at national level, as well as at local level, in cooperation with all relevant stakeholders, including children, civil society organisations, private and public actors,
- gathering reliable and comparable data on children, indicators or benchmarks on children’s rights that can support development of evidence-based policies,
- developing participatory research methodologies involving children,
- implementing child-rights budgeting —e.g. monitoring resources allocated to protection and promotion of rights of the child in national and local budget plans such as EU funds, in a multidisciplinary approach,
- developing child rights impact assessment methodologies at national and local level,
- Integrating children’s rights in all relevant areas of policy and practice, ensuring their interests are prioritised across sectors and institutions is essential to achieve the overall objectives of the EU Strategy on the rights of the child. This priority focuses on implementing mainstreaming tools for the promotion and protection on the rights of the child at national and local level. Projects should ensure that these tools become fully integrated in policy and practices to ensure a systematic approach, including by:
- Priority 1 – Children’s rights in the digital age
Funding Information
- Priority 1: Indicative funding available for this priority: EUR 9 000 000.
- Priority 2: Indicative funding available for this priority: EUR 5 000 000
- Priority 3: Indicative funding available for this priority: EUR 3 000 000.
Eligible Activities
- Activities may include:
- Priority 1 (Children’s rights in the digital age):
- Development of digital literacy educational tools and programmes in cocreation with children to promote online safety, privacy, media literacy and the responsible use of digital services
- Training of, and the production of training and guidance material for, children, parents, carers and educational professionals
- Development, strengthening and promotion of media literacy programmes to counter disinformation and empower children to take part in the democratic debate
- Development of resources to inform, train and raise awareness of digital service
- Priority 2 (Children’s engagement and participation):
- Awareness-raising about child participation, including specific sessions for national and local authorities, co-designed and co-facilitated by children
- Training and the production of training and guidance material for professionals to encourage and facilitate the development of child participation mechanisms
- Training and production of guidance materials for children on advocacy and democratic participation, including in elections
- The design, implementation and testing of child participation mechanisms in schools, city councils, children advisory boards that have a clear assessment of impact of children’s voices
- Creation of short-, mid- and long-term child participation strategies at local and national level
- Priority 3 (Embedding a right of the child perspective in actions at national and local level):
- Mutual learning, trainings, exchange of good practices, cooperation and networking
- Dissemination, communication and awareness raising, including social media or press campaigns
- Capacity building and training activities of national, regional and local authorities
- Training activities and awareness raising sessions for children
- Design and implementation of protocols, development of working methods and tools
- Development of methodologies for data gathering, data exercises and dissemination (exclusively for the sub-priority related to data).
- Priority 1 (Children’s rights in the digital age):
Eligibility Criteria
- Projects can be national or transnational. Transnational projects are particularly encouraged.
- In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
- be legal entities (public or private bodies) or international organisations;
- Lead applicants must be non-profit making. Organisations which are profitoriented may apply only in partnership with public entities, private non-profit organisations, or international organisations;
- be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
- EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)
- non-EU countries:
- countries associated to the CERV Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature
- Specific cases
- Natural persons — Natural persons are not eligible (with the exception of self-employed persons, i.e. sole traders, where the company does not have legal personality separate from that of the natural person).
- International organisations — International organisations are eligible. The rules on eligible countries do not apply to them.
For more information, visit EC.