In the contemporary era of limited state support for public welfare, there exists a pressing global crisis of care. This crisis is marked by a widespread depletion of the capacities and resources for social reproduction, i.e., the processes and activities that sustain life itself (Dowling, 2021; Fraser, 2013; Mezzadri et al., 2022). In this context, non-profit organizations (NPOs) have emerged as important providers of essential goods and services (Baines et al., 2020; Strong, 2020), such as childcare.

Using childcare as a case study, this paper presents a comparative analysis of the discourse of care disseminated by International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) and community-based non-profits. Drawing on a discourse analysis of NPO promotional materials and collaborative research with Canadian non-profit childcare organizations, the paper argues that INGOs pre-dominantly advance an individualized, apolitical, and financially-driven discourse of care, while community-based NPOs depict caring as a collective, highly political, and relationally diverse issue.

The paper stipulates that the way NPOs represent care has important ramifications for how the contemporary crisis of care is publicly understood and the types of policies which are demanded to combat it. The paper thus asks how we may shift attention from the discourse advanced by INGOs towards community-based NPOs’ narrative of care. How might this alternative discourse be disseminated to reach broader spheres of influence, facilitating the formulation and demand for sustainable strategies to combat the global crisis of care?

The paper illuminates the power of discourse in fuelling and combatting crisis, and underscores the pivotal role played by NPOs in the contemporary era of neoliberalism. The global crisis of care serves as a poignant indicator of the unsustainability of the neoliberal model, as the very capacities supporting is existence are increasingly depleted. Thus, in an endeavour to realize sustainable shared futures, reshaping the discourse of care is crucial.

Children’s rights education can offer a grounding orientation for children and youth within and amidst the prevalent insecurities that exist in this era of overlapping crises if, through authentic and integrative approaches (as espoused in the Vienna Declaration), it responds to the real challenges and experiences that children know in their specific contexts. However, there is a gap in the literature on effective processes for doing this. In response, this presentation shares the findings from a cross-country study on child rights education involving 20 elementary schools in four sites in Canada and Uganda. This participatory, multi-modal study draws upon both the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the African Charter for the Rights and Welfare of Children to explore how, by centering the voices of children through playful and participatory pedagogical approaches (e.g., drama, speaking, drawing, creating, singing, and playmaking) that reflect and respond children’s cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic and geographical realities can effectively augment official government curriculum whilst also building citizenship, respect, dignity, equality, inclusion, and agency. Outlining the power players within educational institutions, this approach challenges the status quo approach of adult-child power imbalances and offers opportunities for children to contribute to what and how they learn about their rights, roles, and responsibilities in the larger world. Findings from the study illuminate both the benefits and challenges, as well as the messy realities and efficacies that emerge when disrupting existing power structures within elementary schools in Uganda and Canada.

This paper examines relationships between federal funding and reported engagement by charities in CRA-defined “political activities” over the period 2003-2018. The analysis is based on data provided by the CRA from over 100,000 charities that submitted information returns. The 2003-2018 time period represents the lifespan of the CRA regulations on “political activities” (CPS-022), which were withdrawn and replaced by new regulations in 2019. While the ‘old’ regulations on ‘political activities’ are no longer in place, the data provide important insights into factors that shape public policy engagement by charities in Canada. The paper analyses policy engagement by all charities in Canada but focuses special attention on charities in the international development sector.

The paper examines correlations between receipt of federal funding and self-reported CRA-defined “political activities.” The analysis controls for variables including: size of charity, sector of charity, geographic location, federal funding as a proportion of total revenue, and proportion of reported spending on “political activities.”

Comparative research (mostly from the U.S.) suggests that government funding is positively associated with public policy engagement by charities, but that it constrains how charities engage in policy advocacy, leading them to adopt less confrontational, insider strategies.

The Canadian CRA data on “political activities” adds important insights because it specifically tracked ‘outsider’ advocacy strategies that involve public calls to action. While CRA data must be interpreted with caution, our initial findings suggest that federal funding is positively correlated with charity reports of “political activities.” The paper will include more detailed analysis that considers the control variables mentioned above (size of charity, etc.). The paper also engages with theoretical perspectives on policy engagement by charities, including ‘resource mobilization theory’ and the ‘paradigm of partnership’, and supplements quantitative analysis with data from interviews with charity sector leaders conducted between 2016 and 2023.