Now for the second time, we had the great honor to be invited guests at the Global Child Forum on 11.04.2018 at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. The Global Child Forum campaigns for children’s rights all year round. It is chaired by the Royal Family of Sweden – and everyone participates in a wonderfully down-to-earth way. The highlight is the annual conference, where some 500 participants are invited from around the world from business, government and aid organizations, as well as those affected by children’s rights. This year’s theme was “Business-Impacts on Childrens Right”. The presentations were inspiring and eye-opening. Honestly – some things you just don’t think about in everyday life, especially in the richer countries: About supply chains, about the consequences of consumption, about children as our future, about the importance of education and especially about the strong influence the business world could have in a positive sense on the protection of children’s rights. In addition to many international presentations, there was also real work in open discussion sessions, the so-called ActionLabs. The wonderful event was framed by a very serious and call-to-action speech by King Carl-Gustav of Sweden and wonderfully emotional and inspiring closing words by Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden.
At this year’s event, guests were asked to make a written pledge regarding their commitment to children’s rights. At the end of the conference, 35 of these written pledges had been made – each for one company. Lars and I made two of these pledges – one for HeiReS and one for IT hilft. In addition to five very specific pledges that we will now incorporate into our corporate structure, we have listed as an extra item our IT solution that is currently being developed to improve the compatibility of family and career. We will be setting up a “Children’s rights” section there to spread awareness of this as well.