From July 6 to 9, 2026, the Davos Congress Centre opened its doors to the World Child Forum for the third time.
The World Child Forum—as a space for play, an open studio, and a space for social art—once again invited participants to design a world the way we want it. The first two forums, held in 2023 and 2024, drew mainly on broad international diversity and the impressive number of young people from around the world. This year’s forum was smaller which gave it a different quality: encounters lasted longer, conversations went deeper, and relationships could grow—not necessarily more intensely than previous years, just intense in a different way. One main question hovered over this year’s forum: If we want a future that is not only talked about, but actually co-created, what kind of space do we need? This led to the decision to think of this year’s WCF as a workshop, an open space of possibilities—an experiment. And like any good experiment, there were surprises. A great deal worked rather well. The open spaces, the shared moments, and the deliberate interplay of art, music, play, conversation, and silence created an atmosphere where people could quickly and easily come to meet each other. However, some transitions still felt awkward; some processes could have used more structure. But a workshop is never finished. It continues to evolve with every person who worked there.
Managing a Non-Standardized Format
Perhaps the workshop essence is precisely the World Child Forum’s approach. We want to learn something new every year. The large foyer and indoor gardens of the Congress Centre became a shared living room during those days. Children built play areas, young people discussed peace and the future, and adults listened, made music together, or engaged in conversations that often lasted late into the evening. In between, there were repeated moments that could neither be planned nor moderated.
A father from Bosnia and Herzegovina recounted how he fled the war as a child and now worked as a teacher in North Rhine-Westphalia. He brought students with him to Davos who were experienced for the first time what it means to get to know people from many different countries face-to-face, not just through screens or over the news.
Christian had traveled from Colombia. He’s been politically active there for many years on behalf of children’s rights and seeks dialogue with people concerned with similar issues. He had attended previous forums and was inspired. Now he’s working to one day bring the World Child Forum to Bogotá.
There were many stories like this. Perhaps they are what truly make the World Child Forum so rich. A thirteen-year-old participant said, “I was here last time, too. To be honest, when I stood on stage, it was the first time I ever felt truly free.”
People talk time and again about getting children more involved, but participation often remains nothing more than an item on the agenda. When asked what adults could learn from children, Amil replied without hesitation, “Don’t have any preconceptions. Just have fun and make friends. Adults overthink things.” Perhaps there’s more future in that than any paper on strategy could ever convey. So, instead of starting with answers, the four days we spent together opened with questions: How can we overcome hatred? Is world peace even possible? What does justice mean? What do children really need today? These questions were hung along the walls, came up again and again in conversations, and opened up new spaces for thought and experience.
Nobel Peace Prize for All Children
What began a few years ago with the seemingly impossible question, “What if all children were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?” has since sparked a global movement. In fact, some 2.4 billion children have now been nominated by the World Child Forum. This fact alone changes our perspective on peace. It serves as a reminder that peace always begins wherever children are protected, seen, and taken seriously. During the forum, children and young people, together with Lorena Dunant (granddaughter of Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross and the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate), wrote a letter to the committee in Oslo. Three children then delivered the letter themselves. The fact that this letter was written at the Davos Congress Centre of all places—the very place where many of the world’s most powerful leaders gather each year to discuss global developments—lends this story a special symbolic significance.
The visit by Davos Mayor Philipp Wilhelm also sent an important message. He didn’t come just to deliver a welcome address and then leave. He took the time to listen, engage in conversations, and discuss the future of the World Child Forum with participants. The result was not only great appreciation for this year’s forum but also the City of Davos’s willingness to continue on this shared path and to support the forum again in 2027. That gave us courage.
In addition to all its successes, the forum also clearly showed where it could develop further. Children, young people, and adults need different kinds of spaces. Children need free play, nature, art, and physical activity. Young people need responsibility, international encounters, and the opportunity to develop their own ideas. Adults need places where they can reflect together on how the forum’s ideas influence politics, the economy, education, and society. Real strength arises where these groups meet each other and come together. These are the points of intersection that we want to shape even more consciously in the future so that they become the very heart of the forum. Perhaps our times need precisely these kinds of places: places where people are not first asked about their age, background, or role in society; places where the future is not decided, but explored together.
Every day we hear stories of failure, war, crises, and division; they are part of our present. But they are not the only reality. Just as necessary are stories of success—stories that show that people can build trust, that encounters change prejudices, that playing together builds bridges, and that children are not merely our future, but our present. That is why the World Child Forum doesn’t end with the closing session in Davos. It lives on in the friendships that have formed, in the projects taking root, in the questions we take home with us, and in the hope that something greater can emerge from all the many small encounters. Perhaps the future doesn’t begin where we think we already know everything. Perhaps it begins where we are ready to truly engage with one another.
Next year the story continues.
Translation Joshua Kelberman
Photo World Child Forum 2026
