BETTER CITIES AND COMMUNITIES
FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH
Creating Better Cities with children and youth -
Child and Youth Friendly Communities
A small link-library and some notes about some of them,
gathered by Frode Svane,
Childrens Landscape, Norway
http://www.c2i.net/swan
If you have any website adresses you mean are relevant for this
link-library, please mail it to:
[log in to unmask]
Relevant local links (Scandinavian links):
About Children and Youth Participation:
http://home.c2i.net/swan/medvirkning.htm
http://home.c2i.net/swan
This website is a work–in-progress. Please give your feedback in the
guestbook. If you are really interested, you may give some help with the
translations from Norwegian to English, after having chosen your most
interesting issues. “Environmental Work in the Neighbourhood for
Cityschools” is currently translated. Ask for status!
Contact person Frode Svane, e-mail: [log in to unmask] (Norwegian
IPA-representative).
The Porsgrunn Project:
http://www.porsgrunn.kommune.no/porsgrunnmodellen/english.html
Porsgrunn city has since 1991/1992 tried to develop methods to get
children and youth to participate locally. This is done during the
city’s long-range planning, physical planning and within different
departments. During the winter of 1995/1996 a book and a videotape with
the ideas, efforts, methods and experiences from the Porsgrunn project
was published. In the following the work and the efforts will be
presented.
The Porsgrunn Projects main goal is to strengthen local democracy. This
means developing a positive identity, a feeling of belonging and a habit
of participation. The main goal is to make use of the children’s and
youth’s own resources and competence to engage the grown-ups, because
the children are engaged.
http://www.porsgrunn.kommune.no/porsgrunnmodellen/
(Norwegian version) Contactperson: Kjell Lillestøl, e-mail:
[log in to unmask]
Architecture and Environment (Swedish)
http://www.skolverket.se/skolnet/kulturfonstret/arkitektur.html
(No English version to come?)
Centre for Environmental and Outdoor Education
Linköping, Sweden. English version.
http://www.liu.se/esi/fmup/engforum/engwelcome.html
Contactperson Anders Szczepanski, e-mail: [log in to unmask]
School and Environment
http://www.atmc.no/~nfskole/skoleanl/ramskanl.html
Norsk Form (No English version to come?)
Norwegian Centre for Critical Eye upon Architecture and Environmental
Planning
Contactperson Annichen Hauan, e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Socialt Boligbyggeri`s Ungdomsklubber
http://www.sbbu.dk/
Social Housecooperative`s Youthclubs
Danish Web-site (No English version)
Tingbjerg Recreative Center
http://www.tingbjerg.dk/english/
Danish website with English version
Contactperson Tingbjerg: Jens Haagen Andersen, e-mail:
[log in to unmask]
The Danish Playground Association
Contact Person for the Danish Playground Association: Benny Schytte,
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Contactperson for IPA in Denmark: Anders Bilde, e-mail:
[log in to unmask]
Relevant international links:
Environment as an Integrating Context for Learning
http://www.seer.org/
Creating Better Cities with children and youth
http://firewall.unesco.org/most/growing.htm
http://www.unesco.org/most/guic/guiccbccy.htm
Short notes about the Manual for Participation by David Driskell,
in collaboration with members of the Growing Up in
Cities Team
Forthcoming from Earthscan Publications and UNESCO
Creating Better Cities with children and youth
A Manual for Participation by David Driskell, in collaboration
with members of the Growing Up in Cities Team.
Creating Better Cities with Children and Youth is a "how to" manual for
promoting young people's participation in urban planning, design, and
implementation. It is an invaluable resource for architects, planners,
municipal officials, development professionals, and anyone interested in
creating more child-friendly, humane urban environments and in involving
young people in the process.
Children in Buenos Aires, Argentina, construct a model for a new
community park after conducting a site evaluation, interviewing their
neighbors, and drawing their design ideas
The manual was developed through the Growing Up in Cities project, an
eight-country UNESCO study that promotes young people's participation in
evaluating the impacts of urbanization on their lives, and in developing
and implementing appropriate responses.
The core ideas and methods presented in the manual have been
field-tested across a wide range of urban settings—from self-built
settlements in the developing world to stable working-class
neighborhoods in the industrialized world. The manual draws on these
case studies to demonstrate the methods in action and illustrate how
they can be customized to local needs.
A young girl expresses her views on the issues impacting her low-income
community to a staff person of a local NGO in Bangalore, India.
Creating Better Cities with Children and Youth is a practical guide for
local implementation of the participation principles set forth in the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, Agenda 21 of the Earth Summit,
and Habitat II. It provides a framework for strategizing participatory
projects and building the institutional support necessary for effective
implementation. It also provides concrete examples of methods that can
be used to engage young people in looking at and evaluating their local
environment; analyzing and prioritizing key issues; and developing and
implementing a plan of action. It is particularly useful for reaching
out to "marginalized" groups of young people who are typically excluded
from local decision making.
David Driskell is the managing editor for the manual. He has extensive
editorial experience in the development of publications targeted to
planning and design professionals, with a specialization in the fields
of children's environmental design and urban planning. Among others, his
previous titles include: co-author and editor of the Playful City
Conference Workbook: Ideas, Policies and Guidelines for Creating Urban
Environments that Meet the Needs of Children, Youth, and Families;
co-author and editor of Universal Access to
Outdoor Recreation: A Design Guide; and managing editor of Play for All
CD-ROM: Images and Ideas for Outdoor Play Environments. David Driskell
is also an experienced urban planner, having worked on projects in the
USA, Europe and the Middle East, where he is currently assisting the
state of Qatar with its long-range planning efforts. He has helped
incorporate youth involvement in planning and design projects in
California, Massachusetts, Poland and the former Soviet Union. David
Driskell is the Site Coordinator for the Growing
Up in Cities team in Bangalore, India.
About the Manual for Children's Participation
Among other goals, the current Growing Up in Cities aims to:
Compare actual measures of children's urban experience with the policies
and perceptions of urban development advisers, urban planners, and city
officials, identifying the consequences of their decisions for
children's lives and making recommendations for the development of more
responsive policies and programmes.
Conduct action research that helps build local communication networks
among organizations and individuals that affect the quality of
children's environments, gathering information that can be immediately
applied to the process of urban improvement in the communities being
studied.
Build local and national interest and capacity in low-cost evaluation
methods, including children's participation in monitoring urban life
equality.
Establish a global network of sites for the ongoing monitoring of
children's experience of urban change.
A critical strategy for achieving these goals will be the development
and distribution of a Manual for Children's Participation in Urban
Planning. It will initially be used by the Growing Up in Cities country
teams to guide their research efforts, serving as a training manual for
local researchers. This will also provide an opportunity for the manual
to be field-tested. Based on the lessons from the field-testing, the
manual will be revised, incorporating lessons and case study material
from the project process. The final publication will be broadly
distributed to city planners and officials, development workers, and
child researchers to extend the project's approach and methodology and
to encourage widespread consideration of children's needs and
participation in relation to the urban environment and related decision
making processes.
The manual will provide practical information on the methods and
processes for incorporating children's perspectives and participation in
urban planning and policy making. As such, it will include how-to
instructions and tools such as sample worksheets and interview
questionnaires. At a minimum, it will cover the time-tested core of
low-cost evaluation methods that are being incorporated in the Growing
Up in Cities project.
Objective measures of local demographic and environmental features.
Observations of children's neighbourhood behaviour.
Extended interview with selected children at each site, evenly divided
by gender.
Analysis of children's maps and drawings of their environments.
Guided tours led by small groups of children.
Small group discussions with children regarding neighbourhood issues.
Interviews with parents, local community leaders, planners, and
officials in the municipal and national governments.
In addition, the manual will provide examples from numerous urban and
cultural contexts on how to incorporate children's input into the urban
planning process on an ongoing basis, drawing on the rich case study
material which will be developed through Growing Up in Cities and other
noteworthy projects. These case studies will reflect the project's
emphasis on action research, illustrating how these methods can be
applied in communities and agencies to facilitate children's
participation in monitoring their urban conditions and in contributing
to urban decision making that affects their lives.
Outline of the Manual for Children's Participation
I. Introduction
Statement of Purpose
Overview
How to Use This Manual II. Why Children Should Be Involved in Urban
Planning
Overview of Urbanization Trends
Overview of Urban Issues for Children III. Developing a Local
Framework/Building Local Support
Identifying Local Needs
Building a Local Network
Lobbying Local Officials IV. Defining Local Goals
How to Be Goal-Driven
Developing Goals and Establishing Objectives V. Developing a Process
That Works
The Importance of Process Design
Taking Stock - Goals, Objectives, Resources, Methods, Constraints
Developing a Locally-Relevant Process VI. Methods Menu
A « how-to » guide to participatory research methods:
Background Research
Observation
Interviews with Children
Peer Interviews
Cognitive Mapping
Walking Tours
Small Group Discussions
Interview with Parents
Interviews with Officials VII. Applying the Results
Putting Research Into Action
Implementation Strategies
The Ongoing Participation Process VIII. Participation and Education
Linking Up with Local Schools IX. Case Studies
Request for Further information
If you would like to receive ordering information upon release of
Creating Better Cities with Children and Youth, please contact:
Creating Better Cities with Children and Youth
Nadia Auriat
UNESCO-MOST Programme
1, rue Miollis
75732 Paris Cedex 15
Fax: +33 1 45 68 57 24
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Thank you for your interest!
The Child and Youth Friendly Communities Project
http://www.scyofbc.org/cyfc/toc.html
http://www.scyofbc.org/cyfc/build/how_to/goal.html
http://www.scyofbc.org/cyfc/build/toc_build.html
http://www.scyofbc.org/cyfc/learn/readings/nletter/cf_city.html
Need to decide upon targets for your child and youth friendly community
project?
Ask for what young people think of the best and worse things about their
community!
Here's what some said:
Based on young people's own evaluations of their local communities,
these provide a set of child-generated indicators of a good place in
which to grow up. They include:
Social Integration.
A Variety of Interesting Activity Settings.
Safety and Freedom of Movement.
Peer Gathering Places.
Cohesive Community Identity.
Green Areas.
Secure Land Tenure.
Provision of Basic Needs.
A Tradition of Community Organizing and Self-help.
At the other end of the spectrum, here are the negative indicators
of places that alienate young people:
Stigma and Social Exclusion.
Boredom.
Racial Tension.
Heavy Traffic.
Uncollected Trash and Litter.
Lack of Basic Services.
Sense of Political Powerlessness.
Read more about this
Excerpted from David Driskell's Manual - "Creating Better Cities with
Children and Youth"
http://www.scyofbc.org/cyfc/learn/readings/nletter/cf_city.html
Indicators that a city supports human development
When we talk about creating better cities with children and youth, we
talk about creating cities that support human development. But how do we
determine whether a city does or does not support human development?
What makes a city a good place in which to grow up?
Kevin Lynch, director of the original GUIC project in the 1970s,
described a good city as "one in which children can grow and develop to
the extent of their powers, where they can build their confidence and
become actively engaged in the world, yet be autonomous and capable of
managing their own affairs."
In the 1990s, GUIC expanded upon this description by identifying
specific characteristics in the local environment that contribute to
young people's sense of well-being and general satisfaction with the
place where they live and the things in the local environment that would
allow young people "to grow and develop to the extent of their powers."
Based on young people's own evaluations of their local communities,
these provide a set of child-generated indicators of a good place in
which to grow up. They include:
Social Integration.
Young people feel welcome throughout the community, and interact with
other age groups in public and semi-public places. They have a sense of
belonging and of being valued.
A Variety of Interesting Activity Settings.
There are a variety of places for young people's activities, including
places to meet friends, talk or play informal games; places for sports;
local shops for snacks and other goods; places to be alone or away from
adult supervision; and action to observe on the street or in other
public places.
Safety and Freedom of Movement.
There is a general sense of safety, even in areas where crime exists,
because young people are familiar with the local area and they are
nearly always under the protective eyes of adults. Because there is a
sense of safety, young people are able move about to meet friends and
find interesting things to do.
Peer Gathering Places.
Young people are able to claim corners and niches in the community as
their own, where they can play and socialize - a street corner, a place
in a local park or plaza, a coffee shop or store, a playing field, a
community center or a vacant lot.
Cohesive Community Identity.
Young people are aware of their community's history and take pride in
its accomplishments. They are active participants in its festivals and
cultural life.
Green Areas.
No matter how limited (even if a single tree), green areas are
accessible to young people, from flat green fields for organized sports
to tree-shaded parks and safe overgrown "wild" areas. GUIC also
identified three other important local characteristics that the children
seemed to take for granted, but which nonetheless seem central to their
sense of satisfaction with the local environment.
Secure Land Tenure.
When people own the place where they live, or have stable, legally
protected lease or rental agreements, they have a much stronger sense of
permanence and control, making it more likely that they will invest in
community improvements over time.
Provision of Basic Needs.
Secure access to food, water, shelter, sanitation and medical care are
essential to any measure of community well-being.
A Tradition of Community Organizing and Self-help.
This reflects a sense of local control and empowerment that undoubtedly
finds its way into young people's perceptions of themselves and the
place where they live. When people have a sense of control over their
community and their future, they are likely to feel a stronger sense of
attachment and of hope.
At the other end of the spectrum, GUIC also identified characteristics
that were common in communities where young people voiced a sense of
alienation and overall negative views of their local environment.
These negative indicators of places that alienate young people include:
Stigma and Social Exclusion.
Young people feel unwanted and left out. They do not mix with other age
groups, are not seen in many public places, and are not allowed to
gather with their peers due to either official or unofficial policy.
Local media often focus their reporting on "the youth problem" and many
adults are mistrustful and suspicious of young people in general.
Boredom.
Places that are set aside specifically for young people are often so
sterile, featureless or littered that young people avoid them. This is
particularly problematic for older children and youth.
Fear of Harassment and Crime.
Young people avoid specific areas or whole sections of the community due
to fear of harassment and potential violence. Thus, even though
interesting places might be nearby, they are not accessible.
Racial Tension.
Young people experience fear and stigmatization based on their race.
Heavy Traffic.
Streets and other public places are taken over by cars - moving and
parked - so that little space is left for play. High speed and high
volume traffic makes even the places adjacent to streets unpleasant and
often unsafe, and create major barriers to children's movement in the
local community.
Uncollected Trash and Litter.
Young people see littered parks and streets as ugly in themselves and as
signs of neglect for their area.
Lack of Basic Services.
The lack of basic services such as water, sewerage, and waste collection
results in more work for young people as well as the indignity and shame
of being dirty. It also, though not specifically cited by young people,
increases the prevalence of disease.
Sense of Political Powerlessness.
Young people doubt the value of their ideas and opinions, and are
skeptical about adults taking them seriously. These sentiments are often
reflected in the community at large, in doubts about the communityÕs
ability to create positive change and skepticism about politicians and
the political system.
Excerpted from David Driskell's Manual - "Creating Better Cities with
Children and Youth"
© David Driskell / February 2000
Contact: Nadia Auriat
UNESCO-MOST Programme 1, rue Miollis 75732 Paris Cedex 15
Fax: +33 1 45 68 57 24 E-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.scyofbc.org/cyfc/toc.html
Gather information about your community
How can you best decide an acting plan for your community?
How do you determine if your community is child and youth friendly?
How do you know your actions have been effective?
You must gather information.
Some ways to do that include:
Observing
Interviewing
Developing Questionnaires and Surveys
Making Drawings
Performing Time Records
Going on Walking Tours
Doing a Photography Shoot
Sponsoring Focus Groups
Initiating Small Group Discussions
http://www.scyofbc.org/cyfc/build/how_to/hints.html
http://www.scyofbc.org/cyfc/build/how_to/join_in2.html
Select a way for children and youth to participate
Too often, projects that claim to promote young people's participation
are, on closer inspection, adult-controlled projects with little or no
real participation from young people. These projects may be initiated
and carried out by well-meaning adults, but the reality of their
implementation is that young people are told what to do or manipulated
into acting in support of adult-defined initiatives.
The "levels of participation" below help illuminate some of the ways in
which adults work with young people, distinguishing between ways that
are not participatory, and those that are. While the level of
participation generally decreases as you move down the list, it is not
necessarily the case that higher levels of participation are better. For
example, if the project is of importance to all members of the
community, then the best form of adult-child participation will be joint
decision making, or even consultation, with adults and young people
together helping to determine the best course of action. Most projects
will incorporate several different levels of participation in the course
of a single project.
Levels of Participation in Projects Involving Young People
Forms of Young People's Participation
Children Decide.
Children decide what to do; adults get involved only if asked for help.
Children Lead, Adults Help.
Children take the lead in deciding, with help from adults.
Joint Decision.
Adults and children decide together on a basis of equality.
Consultation.
Adults consult children and consider their opinions carefully; then
adults decide, taking all opinions into account.
Invitation.
Adults invite childrens ideas, but make the decisions themselves on
their own terms.
Forms of Non-Participation
Tokenism.
Adults decide what to do; afterwards children are allowed to decide some
minor aspects.
Decoration.
Adults decide what to do; children take part by singing, dancing, or
performing ceremonial functions.
Manipulation and Deception.
Adults decide what to do and ask children if they agree (children must
agree).
Adults Rule Kindly.
Adults make all decisions; children are told what to do and given
reasons and explanations.
Adults Rule.
Adults make all decisions; children are told nothing except what they
must do.
No Consideration.
Children are not given any help or consideration at all; they are
ignored.
Excerpted from David Driskell's Manual - "Creating Better Cities with
Children and Youth"
© David Driskell / February 2000
http://www.scyofbc.org/cyfc/build/how_to/join_in2.html
FAQ: Who is the Society for Children and Youth of B.C?
The Society for Children and Youth of B.C. (SCY) is a unique
organization in Canada. Its membership includes over fifty organizations
located throughout B.C. It is broadly multi-disciplinary, involving
hundreds of volunteers from fields such as law, health, education, child
development, social services, urban design and planning, recreation and
business.
SCY has provided a forum for exchange and action for over twenty-five
years and is well experienced in forming and maintaining networks around
child/youth issues. It has a fine record of achievement in a wide
variety of topic areas, most notably children's rights, child protection
issues, child abuse prevention, youth justice, children's physical
environments, childrenÕs play, youth recreation and sport, and health
issues such as safety in play areas, and the effects of second hand
smoke.
SCY also has created publications on the CYFC theme, inlcuding the
Community Toolkit.
For much more information try
SCY's Website
or
Contact
SCY
via:
Mailing Address:
The Society for Children and Youth of BC
3644 Slocan Street
Vancouver, BC
V5M 3E8 Canada
Telephone: 604.433.4180
Fax: 604.433.9611
Email: [log in to unmask]
What are Child and Youth Friendly Communities?
Go to CYFC FAQ
http://www.scyofbc.org/cyfc/learn/faq/scy.html
[Go to] The CYFC Project
[Go to] The idea of Child and Youth Friendly Communities
A guiding principle for this project is
the participation of children and youth in shaping communities.
We must learn to listen better to what children and youth are saying.
We must find ways of involving them
in decision-making which are in themselves child and youth friendly.
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