Guardian Angel Media Initiative

The first activity of Angel de la Guarda was the creation of a colourful website, "The Guardian Angel" ("Angel de la Guarda") (no longer in operation as of August 2006), which was launched directly after the UN Week of the Children in 1997. Covering the whole region, including Central and South America, the website featured articles, portraits of "Children's Heroes," a letter to the editor page, statistics, information, photos, theme campaign materials, and publications (magazines and newsletters) on themes such as sexual abuse of children, teenage motherhood, children's work, problems with land mines, lack of primary school education, and health. The site was meant to be sustainable in that it was produced by civil society stakeholders, journalists, photographers, and media professionals who were not financially dependent on income from the Angel de la Guarda project. In its earliest versions, the site was intended primarily for decision makers, authorities, government officials, and politicians.

As the initiative grew, an effort was launched to make the content interesting to Nicaraguan youth. Local content was provided in the Spanish language, addressing the concerns of children and youth in Nicaragua. The site was interactive, with the opportunity to raise questions and engage in online discussions - fostering the giving and receiving of advice on children's concerns. Youth participation was facilitated by featuring articles written by young journalists; training was provided to 3 teenagers, who were appointed to write from a youth angle. For example, an 18-year old boy began his story by writing, "I started to work because I was hungry" and then went on to share details about his life in the marketplace and his strategies for avoiding the temptations of drugs. Other examples of "role model content" were stories about "Child Heroes" - ordinary children sharing stories about something they are good at, including reciting poems and winning a motorcycle prize. Online quizzes and a photo-sharing gallery were among the features meant to be entertaining while raising awareness and sharing information about children's rights.

Beginning in 2002, printed magazines were published on a weekly basis and disseminated primarily to decision makers and civil society organisations. (A distribution manager was hired to identify appropriate recipients of the magazine by using the stakeholders' collective contact databases). However, when funding from the main donor, Save the Children, Norway, ceased, it was no longer possible to produce the printed versions of the magazine.

Children's Rights, Education, Health, Youth.

According to Angel de la Guarda, Nicaragua is the third economically poorest country in Latin America. Other statistics offered to give a sense of children's situation there:

• One-third of all children have some degree of chronic malnutrition and 9% suffer from grave malnutrition.
• A study by the University of Leon found that 20% of the men and 26% of the women had experienced sexual abuse when they were children. In 1999 more than 60% of the total number of sexual abuse cases involved children under 17 years, and 20% under 13 years.
• Angel de la Guarda reports that 175,000 children in Central America are working in domestic services alone - of these, more than 25,000 are in Nicaragua. Citing the International Trade Organisation, Angel de la Guarda reports that more than 42,000 children in Central America in the age group of 10-14 years work.
• According to UNICEF, adolescent pregnancies account for 1 of every 4 births nationally.
• Access to education is limited, and an estimated 79% of primary-school-age children are enrolled. The children who manage to get enrolled meet an education system with significant problems, as it takes an average of 10.3 years to complete the mandatory 6 years of schooling. Only 29% of the children complete primary schooling, as many economically poor families are unable to afford the direct or hidden costs of the education system.
• Only several hundred Nicaraguan schools are connected to the internet, and only a fraction of the entire population of Nicaragua has access to the internet.

Organisers claim that the initiative's impact can be seen in the fact that the newspapers now have an intensified coverage of children's issues such as children's rights. Before 1997 there was "hardly any mentioning or coverage on the social conditions of children - now the public opinion is more open to discussions of children and human rights. 10% of the news is about children, according to [non-governmental organisations, or] NGOs monitoring the press. In 2004 there was an attempt to alter the law and go back to earlier times, where it was allowed to prosecute and imprison underage children. However, the majority of decision makers and government officials voted against the proposal after a huge campaign undertaken by Angel de la Guarda. 'If the campaign and the previous long period of lobbying for children's rights had not taken place, the proposed law reinforcement would have been sanctioned' ", according to Roberto Fonsecsa of Angel de la Guarda.

In addition, the work of the group of people behind Angel de la Guarda has led to a post graduate study programme being established at the University of Central America (UCA), where a diploma concerning the implementation of children's rights can now be obtained. The editor and other stakeholders in the Angel de la Guarda project teach these courses, which are meant to be a source for continued capacity building of students on children's and human rights.