The CRIA Asia Core Team Meeting took place from 5^th-9^th September with participation from different parts of India, Nepal and France. CRIA, Child Rights in Action, is a platform which provides a practical solution to the stakeholders who work with children, by creating an inclusive space to encourage the participation of children in the decision-making process, around the issues concerning them. Children’s participation is essential for the total implementation of children’s rights. CRIA talks about going from doing ‘for’ children to doing ‘with’ children. The CRIA Asia Core Team was organized at Pratyek office in St. Columbus School.

CRIA ASIA is supported by its two core partners, Caritas India and Pratyek, that have been working in the direction of Child Rights and Dialogue building. The purpose of the Core Team Meeting was to have the children decide a theme for the main CRIA Asia event slated to be organized in May 2020. During the programme, different organizations come together and bring children and adult participation into designing various activities and workshops for amplifying child participation on their pressing concerns.

At the core team meeting, young people shared their issues and concerns. Some major issues like child trafficking, girl child social problems, sexual abuse gender, sex, sexuality, consensual love marriages amongst Nepal children, poverty and malnourishment were highlighted by young people. Ms. Ruth from Kalimping, Darjeeling, President of her child club member and Ms. Bharti, member of the adolescent collectives, Roshni ki Toli, Caritas India programmes participated in the meeting.

The theme decided for CRIA ASIA 2020 is Girl Child and Gender. There is a coherent story line for the event, where metaphor chosen is a bird- the bird comes out of the egg, tries to fly, fails at thunderstorm, finds itself locked in a cage, tries to free itself and the finally flies high in the sky. This story line is a guide for CRIA ASIA 2020 event. Through this programme, CRIA Asia is trying to achieve the participation of children to voice their concerns, developing a culture where children speak about their issues and are truly recognized as rights holders.

A group of 12 children and 15 adults came together to work in interactive and child friendly ways to arrive at a theme and a story line for CRIA ASIA main event. The meeting talked about the review of CRIA ASIA Strategic Plan, issues of children, experiences of the past events and specifying the roles to various people to take up tasks and responsibilities.