Ms. Tsolmon Enkhbat, manager of the "Protecting Girls from Violence and Exploitation" project and the manager of Save the Children's Child Protection and Children's Rights Governance programs, spoke about the importance of the hackathon: "According to Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), we should assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child. Save the Children has extensive international experience developing methodologies to encourage child participation. When children take the initiative and originate ideas, and adults work with them to encourage and implement those ideas, child participation delivers tremendous effects. We can make a genuine impact in child safety if we listen to our children's opinions, value them, and include their ideas into the work we do for them. The main feature of the hackathon we organized together is that we listened to our children's ideas, provided them with the necessary support and helped them implement the proposed solutions. For example, an important outcome was the identification of how a child can contribute to recognizing, preventing and reporting signs of violence either in the digital environment or caused by the digital environment."
Despite the fact that the hackathon was held during school holidays, the organizers emphasized that participation and motivation of the children was very high. In addition, the judges and mentors highly appreciated the children's use of digital tools, skills to work with modern technologies, creativity and forward thinking ability.
