Child in the City’s new expert scientific committee

Published on 02-07-2018 at 10:52

Global children’s rights advocate Child in the City has unveiled a new expert scientific committee, who will be responsible for the content and programming of future events.

It’s the first step in the restructuring of the Child in the City Foundation, which is busy planning its 9th annual world conference from 24-26 September in Vienna. Its flagship event brings together acclaimed children’s rights professionals from all over the world.

The new Scientific Program Committee, chaired by Dr Lia Karsten, associate professor at the University of Amsterdam, has been developing a formidable programme of speakers for the conference in Austria’s capital.

Over 100 speakers, ranging from scientists to practitioners to city experts, will be presenting their experiences and sharing good practice at the conference, which has been held bi-annually in European cities since 2002. The conference is supported by a daily online news and social media platforms and a weekly newsletter read by over 5,000 people.

Completing the new committee are Carlo Fabian, Professor at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts North-Western in Switzerland; Irene Quintans, founder and director of the OCARA Network in Brazil, and Froukje Hajer, a consultant on youth policy and children’s rights in Amsterdam.

The new scientific committee will draw on its combined vast experiences of the child rights arena to develop speaking programs for the foundation’s activities, such as conferences and seminars, together with local city experts.

For the Vienna line-up they worked closely with a group of Austria-based experts: Sonja Brauner, head of the department of child and youth education at wienXtra (Vienna); Bettina Schwarzmayr, educational manager at wienXtra; Herbert Rosenstingl, from the Youth Department at the Austrian Federal Chancellery; and Birgit Kollek, of the wienXtra-kinderinfo service center for family leisure activities & culture.

Johan Haarhuis, founder and chairman of the Child in the City Foundation, said: “We are very proud to have the cooperation of these great experts, all of whom are committed to children’s rights and the well-being of children in cities.”

“It is very encouraging to see that our conferences are contributing to finding solutions to the problems faced by children in cities – we usually have participants from more than 30 countries exchanging knowledge and experience.”