It's Your Right: Arturs (10) on Children's Rights

Mar 25, 2014, 11:50 AM

Arturs, aged 10, from St Francis of Assisi Primary School in Belmayne, Dublin talks about his rights as a child and the importance of the right to your own language. Arturs is in 4th Class and on the day we recorded his class had just been introduced to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Arturs remembers starting school with no English, feeling lost and confused and loved the fact he now has three languages Russian, English and Irish. His favourite subject is Maths!

Watch the video of the 4th class students of St. Francis of Assisi Belmayne visiting the Ombudman for Children's Office on our It's Your Right Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/91527878

Here is the full text of what Arturs says in this audioboo.

Arturs: My name is Arturs Markovics and I’m ten years old. I come from Latvia and I go to St. Francis of Assisi Belmayne. I like soccer, playing with my friends. I like education, studying and I like maths.

Arturs: I think the most important rights are education, learning, play and sleep and food and water and family and friendship. I don’t think some people have those rights because in some countries there’s wars and then there’s children and they don’t get all the rights because the war is just stopping them from having all the rights.

Arturs: I think right to a language is really good because then everybody has the right to speak their language and nobody can tell them to stop speaking their language because that’s the way they were born and that’s the way that they want to speak.

Arturs: Speaking Russian is actually really important to me because that’s the way my whole family speaks and it’s really important so that then I can communicate with my family ‘cause if I couldn’t speak Russian then I wouldn’t be able to speak to my family.

Arturs: Actually I didnt know I had the right to my language ‘cause I thought everybody was allowed to speak there own language. It’s what they decide but since the right it makes me more confident.

Arturs: If that right was taken away I would probably just feel like I had no mouth. I wouldn’t be able to speak any language ‘cause it’s quite difficult. It’s actually a part of my identity ‘cause my family always spoke Russian. So it’s actually, it’s the whole thing that changes me.

Arturs: I didn’t know about the rights of Children until today and em, I really feel happy that I learned about it because it makes me a smarter person. If I didn’t have any of those rights I would probably feel miserable. I would just be so sad and life wouldn't be life like it is right now.