Posters proclaiming A country is judged on how it treats its children will be seen this autumn adorning billboards throughout the country. The first indication of a subversive plot to overthrow adult monopolisation of the world? Not yet - the posters belong to phase one of a campaign from the Children's Rights Alliance to raise awareness of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Under the Convention, ratified by Ireland in 1992, each country which has signed is obliged to make children aware of their rights. The fact that we would be lucky if a handful of Irish children were even remotely familiar with the Convention does not reflect well on the Irish Government.

This point was raised in Geneva at the beginning of the year by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the body responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Convention. In response the Government has made a commitment to "part finance publicity" on the Convention and phase one, the poster campaign, is set to kick off any day now.

Information packs, which are separately funded by the Gulbenkian Foundation, will accompany the poster campaign. These will outline the Convention - how it works, the sort of impact it should have, how the rights of families and parents are affected.

Fionnuala Kilfeather is national co-ordinator of the National Parents Council (Primary) and a former executive member of the Children's Rights Alliance. "We are very supportive of the UN Convention," she says, "particularly its support for the role of the family in a child's life. It recognises childrens' rights as citizens."

Many people feel that children's rights come from their parents, says Kilfeather. "While parents are the primary educators and carers of children, the manner in which we relate to our children nowadays is far less authoritarian than it was in the past. In fact, across the board, Irish people are more inclined towards self determination.

"We all expect to be consulted on decisions which effect us. This sort of consultation is increasingly prevelant between parents and children too. We negotiate with them, give them choices, listen to their opinions. I believe that, without articulating it, parents are already treating children as citizens with rights."

Under the Convention, children are accorded the right to be consulted on policy issues which effect them, which has serious implications for areas such as education. "Consulting children has been shown to be a very effective way of meeting their needs," says Kilfeather. "Codes of discipline, for instance, have been shown by international studies to work better when children are involved in devising them. To understand children's needs, we have to give them a voice - and this is where the Convention comes in."

According to Anne Shaw, development officer with the Children's Rights Alliance, a lot of time and energy went into designing the campaign in order that it would be captivating and relevant to its target audience. "We put Celtic graphics along the borders to give it a sense of Irishness," she says, "and we devised graphics specific to each issue.

"One of the posters advertises the fact that a fifth of Traveller children aged between 12 and 15 do not receive any formal education. For this poster we used old quilting patterns and a Traveller's wheel. We wanted to make the graphics appropriate to each theme.

"We've also devised a little character to whom children of all ages can relate, which will be stamped on all the posters and any literature we make available".

The initial poster campaign will focus on the general themes of the UN Convention - then, over the coming months, particular issues will be highlighted. "We'll look at issues such as child poverty, young offenders and childrens health," says Shaw. "If we're doing something on health, for example, we'll also produce good practice guides, target people in the health arena and do child-centred activities around the country. Children and young people have the chance to be actively involved, rather than being passive spectators."

Children's involvement is one of the most important aspects of the campaign. "We will involve children in three ways," says Shaw, "children as audiences, as participants and as campaigners. We have established a working group which is looking at the idea of children from each county designing their own children's rights poster and we planned to use the poster during one of the phases of the campaign.

"We want to see children actively involved in a way which is valuable to them and us. It's not about tokenism or using children to attract attention, but genuinely discovering their views and opinions so that we know what we're doing is relevant and beneficial."