LOCKDOWN KINDERRECHTE (Lockdown children's rights) – the documentary

With the film LOCKDOWN KINDERRECHTE we give a voice to children and young people,

and also to experts in child and adolescent health who can show what traces the handling of the corona crisis has already left and will continue to leave.

It was particularly important to us to develop this film together with children and young people: they filmed from their own point of view and so show how the lockdown affects their very personal experience.

We want to wake people up and encourage them: every single person to stand up for the rights and health of this vulnerable group. Because children’s rights are human rights, and physically and mentally healthy children are the future of us all!

A documentary by Patricia Marchart and Judith Raunig

featuring: Nina Proll, Maria Rösslhumer, Katrin Skala, Corinne Eckenstein, Christine Saahs, Silvia Dovits, Alexandra Vöhringer, Gerald Hüther, Andreas Sönnichsen, Christian Schubert, Martin Sprenger, Wolfram Proksch, Christian Fiala, Reinhard Raunig-Peneder, Werner Winterstein.

THE FILM (83 min, German)

One in five Austrians is under 19 years old – 1.7 million in total. What have politics and society done for this group since the start of the pandemic? Were they protected? Were their rights and their dignity respected? Did politicians carefully weigh the benefits and harms of the measures for children and young people? No!

Children and young people are among the weakest in society: they have no lobby and cannot stand up for their own rights.

Children and young people are themselves hardly affected by Covid: they are infected with the virus less often, pass it on less often and only in absolutely exceptional cases become seriously ill themselves.

And although they are hardly affected by Covid, they are among the main losers of this crisis: despite warnings from numerous experts, schools were closed for months and teaching took place only remotely. Young people were called virus spreaders and repeatedly criticised in the media for their behaviour. Contact with peers was prevented, as was the opportunity to do sport in clubs.

Children were implicitly given the responsibility of protecting their own grandparents from illness, and so it was suggested that they would be to blame if grandpa or grandma fell ill after a visit.

The effects of these massive political failures have long been visible: child psychiatric wards are overcrowded, and several societies for child and adolescent health have been warning for months of collateral damage and health consequences on an enormous scale.

And yet: the psychosocial health of our children still has hardly any place in the public debate on the measures.

Now revised – “Lernen ist wie Atmen” (Learning is like breathing) as an eBook

Together with two free-learning mothers, Gudrun Totschnig and Sigrid Haubenberger, we self-published it and have now also made it available as an eBook.

We feel that especially in this time of distance learning, experiences from free learning can help provide orientation. Let the reading sample inspire you, or buy the eBook as a PDF on the GAIA marketplace (the 10% member discount applies here too).

BUY THE eBOOK (German)