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The Children’s Movement (CM)

The Children’s Movement (CM) was started in South Africa in 1983 to help children organise themselves into a community group based movement. By adopting the ‘Child to Child’ concept, the movement aims to empower children to change society from a ‘dog-eat dog’ society into a caring society. This was an initiative of Marcus Solomon, a fellow YCCC club member who at age 24 was sentenced to 15 years on Robben Island where, amongst other things he spent time reading philosophies of child psychology and its relationship to social change. The movement is based on the idea that adults must create the conditions for the growth of a united national children’s organisation and social movement for children and that children can teach other children whatever they need to know in order to change the world. Ottilie Abrahams explained the 5 principles: respect yourself, respect your neighbour, respect the environment, critical thinking, and participatory democracy. The current goal is to expand and to build an African Children’s Movement.

The newsletter of the CM also as a Revolutionary Papers Teaching Tool here.

The Children’s Movement is based on the concept that children can do a lot, provided that they have the assistance of adults. And our motto is actually ‘We shall change the world.’ We want children to understand that their opinions are important, that their ideas are important, and they can actually achieve this if they sat together and they worked together, if they unite.”

— Ottilie Abrahams, 2016