Children are often seen and not heard. They are unaware that just like adults they have a right to a voice, to be protected and cared for - rights enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Booklets like World Vision's 'Hak Anak Indonesia!' help children to learn about their rights using colourful short stories and cartoons.

An important theme in these booklets is tolerance of other cultures. Children learn that the right to live without discrimination, violence or fear extends to all in their country, not just themselves.

The Bengawan Solo Song (short story)

A boy refuses to accompany his friends to another child's house. His father has told him that the child’s family, of Chinese ‘immigrant’ descent, is not really Indonesian, because they speak Chinese at home rather than the Bahasa Indonesian language. The boy’s friend disagrees, saying that everybody has the right to their own language, religion and culture.

The boy’s mother agrees with his friends, explaining that her husband dislikes the Chinese family for personal reasons, but that they are good people. She tells her son to go and visit.

CRC Article 30: Wherever people are in an ethnic, religious or linguistic minority of indigenous origin, each child belonging to such a minority shall not be denied the right to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practice his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language.

Reconcile, Dad! (cartoon)

Two children, a girl and a boy, are cousins, but the boy’s father and the girl’s mother – grown up brother and sister – have a hostile relationship. The sister lives in the inherited family home with her husband and children but the brother wants to repossess it and live there with his family.

One day the girl gives the boy a birthday present at the crossroads; she cannot go to his house due to the bad relationship between their parents. The boy is saddened by this, and when his father asks him to come and throw stones at their enemy’s house, he refuses and complains to his mother. His mother also disagrees with the hostility, especially now that it has involved the children.

The father, angry at his wife and son, storms over to his sister’s house. To his surprise, the sister, having now rented another house for her family, hands over the key to her brother. No longer angry, he changes his mind, apologises to his sister and gives her back the key. She says that she has been ashamed of their hostility, and they reconcile. In the end it was the children who made them do it.

CRC Article 14: Respect the right of the child to freedom of thought and conscience, and CRC Article 38: Ensure that children do not take a direct part in hostilities

Playing One against the Other (cartoon)

Some village boys are making toy weapons, when suddenly a man appears and offers them real weapons - bows and arrows, air guns and spears. He tells them that tomorrow their village will be attacked by children from another village. He then tells the children of that village the same story, so that the two factions are ready to fight each other.

The next day the children of the two villages meet at a bridge and begin to fight with their new weapons. The adults come to stop the fighting, and while they are away from their villages, the man’s friends rob their houses.

The police arrive to stop the fighting, and arrest the man and his friends. They also take the children to the police station, but treat them kindly, as witnesses; it was not their fault. One of the policemen explains that the man and his friends have broken the law twice –by robbing, and by involving children under the age of 15 in hostilities.

CRC Article 37b: No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law