As part of our foundation's work, we come into direct or indirect contact with children and young people—for example, through workshops, events, surveys, or written exchange. The Child Protection concept establishes a binding framework and a shared institutional stance for this purpose, ensuring the protection, provision, and participation of children, while also providing our staff with guidance and confidence in their interactions with children and youth.
Our Child Protection concept is grounded in children's rights as enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Of particular importance here are Article 12 (Participation), Article 13 (Freedom of Expression), Article 16 (Privacy), Article 8 (The right to their own identity), Article 17 (Access to Information), and Article 19 (Protection from Violence).
Our Child Protection concept has several key objectives:
- We ensure protection from violence in our programs. Children are protected from physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, both in analog and digital spaces.
- We ensure participation in our programs: children are actively involved in project design and decision-making wherever possible. Transparency is created, and they receive information about how their contributions will be used and what benefit they provide.
- We promote media literacy: children are supported in using digital media safely, self-reliantly, and responsibly.
- The protection concept establishes uniform standards, which we implement across our programs: all projects operate in accordance with this concept to protect children and to build trust among parents and other guardians or legal custodians.
- We offer training and promote awareness: staff members are trained and encouraged to actively participate in realizing children's rights.
- We strengthen our public perception and reinforce trust in the foundation: an active child protection concept improves the foundation's credibility and reputation.
Further details regarding our framework for children's rights, protective measures, training and awareness-raising, as well as guidance on the representation of and communication with children, on responsibility, and on how to act in cases of misconduct, are set out in the Child Protection document.
The Child Protection concept is available in german for download.