The members of the AOB take stock Establishing the AOB as an institution of human rights education is already bearing fruit. I would also like to thank the Danube University Krems for its invitation to be involved in the award of the Children’s Rights Prize and the clerical college of education in Krems for its especially established human rights centre as part of its study programme and for its great interest in our work. With its “open lecture” on children’s and human rights at clerical college of education in Krems, I was able to create a lively picture of the AOB’s work and directly address multipliers. The AOB publication “Young people and their rights” is an essential medium to transport the idea of making young people aware of their rights (and thus – and this is particularly important – the rights of others) from the perspective of their own environment. This publication found a great deal of interest at the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) so that we were able to publish an English version with the help of the Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs, which can now be used as a best-practice example with international contacts. I was very pleased to accept the invitation to present it before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as its author. In a panel discussion of the UN Human Rights Council with several distinguished participants, I was also able to present an Austrian field of competence with regard to human rights assessments and experience with human rights in the areas of the penal system and criminal justice. The international reaction is a confirmation and motivation for further work in this area that is so important. Just how much the state governed by the rule of law can affect the latitude that human beings have in their lives is experienced by people as they get older or during or after an illness or accident. In these already difficult situations, questions surrounding legal guardianship and the consequences of court decisions can present an additional problem. The AOB has dealt with complaints in these areas for many years. People perceive it as extremely degrading when those affected – and often their family as well – are not integrated into the decision-making processes in questions of everyday life and in major financial arrangements too. As ombudswoman, I make every effort to support all endeavours to make improvements for this constantly growing group of people. During my participation in a symposium by the University of Applied Sciences in Linz, the range of human rights was expanded to include the rights of persons with disabilities. In the reform working group of the Federal Ministry of Justice, the AOB was able to argue persuasively based on the complaints received on a daily basis. It was able to develop solutions jointly with its dialogue partners to implement steps that precede full legal guardianship (keyword “welfare for the elderly”). Now it is up to the government and Parliament, the Laender Diets and district authorities to get down to brass tacks and to pass effective reforms that will take away people’s feelings of powerlessness. 10