In conflict regions around the world children as young as eight are conscripted to fight in wars that are not their own. Poverty, hopelessness and fear are exploited by adults who place children on the front lines of conflict. But children are rising up, refusing to fight and kill, and taking back the hope of a better future for themselves.

This November 20th, World Children’s Day, we are launching a special video to draw attention to the scourge of child soldier recruitment and to call for a world in which every child is able to rise above the devastating effects of war. And we need your help to make it a reality.

World Children’s Day celebrates the passage of the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child, and its successor, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, important legislation that bans recruiting child soldiers and demands national governments care for children’s rights. It’s time to protect children from war, to teach them to do something other than to fight and kill, and to call them back to hope. Together, we can help children become empowered to build peace across ethnic and gender divisions. We can teach them that there is more to life than guns and grenades. We can give them hope for, and the power to build, a future in which they flourish.

Do you want to help children resist recruitment as child soldiers and overcome the effects of war? Donate to Right To Play, and teach children that they have the power to create peace.

Want to know more about Right To Play’s work teaching children to build peace? Read about Malual, just one of the amazing young people who is using play to bring peace to his community.