2024 was the 30^th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It is surprising that research and intervention processes have not, on the whole, adequately or substantively included children and young people across these three decades.

A new book recently published by Practical Action called ‘Voices of Activists and Academics: Working with children in communities’ marks an exception to this trend. The book presents the voices and first hand experiences of youth activists, or of their participatory work with children and young people.

Two of the important lessons in the book are:

• Adults cannot and should not speak for children. Children need to be seen as legitimate actors in their own right; when given space and support to do so, they are capable of far more than adults tend to realise, and are part of the solution not the problem.
• Young people can be excellent co-leaders and partners, but true intergenerational participation requires trust and time.

The book is edited by Vicky Johnson (Centre for Living Sustainability, University of the Highlands and Islands, Inverness), myself (Tessa Lewin, Institute of Development Studies), and Andrew West (independent). It is a collection of edited interviews with leading thinkers in the child rights field. It came out of a participatory child rights programme called ‘Rejuvenate’, run by Vicky Johnson and myself, and funded by the Global Children’s Rights Program team at the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund. Andy West was a close ally throughout Rejuvenate’s development, and as a co-editor, brings a wealth of knowledge as a practitioner and thinker in this field.

Rejuvenate’s early work included a mapping of the field of participatory child rights, including people, projects, and literature. It culminated in a ‘living archive’, and our first working paper, which made a case for substantively involving children in decision making, and recognising the value that children and young people can bring to their communities, when they are given the space and support to do so.

In building our ‘living archive’, we interviewed many extraordinary and diverse actors in the field of participatory child rights. We felt strongly that the full richness of these interviews, was not accessible in our working paper and living archive. This book is our attempt to correct this, and to make available a wonderful set of interviews, all of which are with people who take children and youth seriously as social and political actors.

Our interviewees include a broad range of people from activists working on the ground to academics, across varied geographies, including:

• Lakshitha Saji Prelis (Director of Children & Youth  Programs at  Search  for  Common  Ground  and  Co-Chair of the Global Coalition on Youth, Peace and Security),
• Irene Rizzini (Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Director of The International Center for Research and Policy on Childhood),
• Chernor Bah (co-founder of Purposeful Productions, and currently  the  Minister  of  Information  and  Civic  Education  for  the  Republic  of  Sierra  Leone),
• Kavita Ratna, the Director of ‘The Concerned for Working Children’ (CWC) an organisation thrice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for its excellence in child participation practice,
• Annania Admassu (Founder and Executive Director of CHADET-ETHIOPIA),
• Blair Glencorse, Co-CEO of the Accountability Lab, and many others.

Together, they ask us to imagine a world that is not adult-focused, and they point to the possibilities inherent in a world that proactively creates space and support for children’s and young people’s involvement in the decisions that have a critical impact on their lives.

The book will be of interest to child and youth rights professionals generally, and to teachers and graduate students of child and youth studies, policymakers, activists, philanthropists, and historians of child rights thinking and practice. It includes interviews with many of the key actors and thinkers in this field.