Child Rights Information and Documentation Centre (CRIDOC) Information

Child Rights Information and Documentation Centre (CRIDOC) is a non-profit organisation established to create access to information on on issues that affect children and young people through Research, Monitoring, Documentation, ICT, Media and other communication channels. The Centre was founded as a documentation and ICT project on child rights issues in 2003 by George Mwika Kayange, a Malawian media intern at the time based in New Delhi, India, who was working as a voluntary editor for the Child Labour News Service (CLNS), an on-line project run by Global March Against Child Labour. The mission statement of the organization is "to contribute towards the promotion of rights and development of children and young people through information exchange, information documentation and information dissemination." Te vision statement is "a social order where children are an integral part of the Family, Community or National life and their basic rights are respected accordingly”. Today, the Centre puts particular emphasis on the uniqueness of every child and young person, and the complexity of grappling with issues concerning their welfare in Malawi, especially in the face of the gruelling poverty, HIV and AIDS , high illiteracy rates, child labour, juvenile justice, the plight of street children, and many other social ills affecting our children. As such, the Centre therefore takes a lead at providing guidance, motivation and information to children and all those involved in research and child rights issues, in terms of facilitating for the necessary interventions, information resources, education and professional support. The Centre respects the rights and dignity of children and all those concerned with their education and social welfare, and seeks to promote awareness on child rights issues through media, outreach programmes, seminars, conferences and other modes of communication. It actively participates in advocacy movements at national level.