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Give voice to children and adolescents
Terre des hommes (Tdh) is charity partner of the Paléo Festival in Nyon 2014.From July 22 until 27, Tdh, the children’s aid organisation, will follow the rhythm of the Village du Monde at the Paléo Festival. The biggest Swiss open-air festival has invited the largest Swiss children’s aid organisation to present its work as part of their programme that awaits an audience of over 230’000 spectators. In an unconventional way, the spectators will be able to discover Terre des hommes’ activities to protect the rights of young people who have come into conflict with the law in Latin America.
Terre des hommes is charity partner of the Paléo Festival in Nyon 2014
This year, the Village du Monde (http://yeah.paleo.ch/en/village-du-monde) which is an actual festival within the festival, is dedicated to the Andes. A region where Terre des hommes, children’s aid organisation, founded in 1960 in Lausanne, is particularly active and tries to defend the rights of children and adolescents in judicial matters. The Swiss nongovernmental organisation leads projects in Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, countries that despite their economic growth have not yet succeeded in offering enough perspectives for their children and adolescents. Many young people fall in the hands of gangs and easily fall prey to delinquency.
Tdh promotes the prevention of violence and restorative justice and proposes educative measures as an alternative to repression. Adolescents are thus able to play an active role in their community, get reintegrated and kept away from criminal activity. With a low recidivism rate, the restorative approach of justice has brought convincing results: In Peru, the recidivism rate amounts to 4% on a total of 80 minors who have been supervised by Terre des hommes, which is rather low compared to European standards. Furthermore, costs arising from these measures that do not involve deprivation of liberty are usually lower than those of an imprisonment. At the Paléo, the public has the opportunity to meet people working for Terre des hommes and to get directly involved for the benefit of juvenile offenders.
As an expert with regard to restorative juvenile justice (http://www.tdh.ch/en/documents/infopage-justice-juvenile-2013), Tdh has been awarded several times due to the innovative character of its projects. In 2012 for example, it has been awarded the «Javier Pérez de Cuéllar» prize in Peru. And the work continues as in 2015, the nongovernment organisation organises together with the Swiss government the World Congress on Juvenile Justice (http://www.tdh.ch/en/news/congres-mondial-justice-juvenile) in Geneva . From January 26 until 30, this platform will offer an opportunity to the actors of justice (nongovernment organisations, states, judges etc.) to share their experience, results and needs to reinforce cooperation with regard to juvenile justice.
Every year, Terre des hommes offers sustainable solutions and a better future for over two million children and their relatives. Learn more about our projects in Peru (http://www.tdh.ch/en/countries/peru).
