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Please see below the (very late) CFP for the 4th International Conference on the Geographies on Children, Youth and Family, January 12-15, 2015 San Diego, California/USA http://icgcsandiego.wix.com/ypbw Apologies for cross-posting. Call for Participation in World Café on Young People and the Right to the City We are organizing a World Café (and potentially a paper session) around the theme of Young People and the right to the city. The aim of the session is create a dialogue (ideally between activists and academics) on the rights of children and young people as inhabitants with equal claims in producing and enjoying urban spaces. More specifically, the session seeks to address the question of how to better include children and young people in the revision of the ‘World Charter for Right to the City.’ The hope is that the Café will create some guiding ideas to assist in the preparation of a new Charter and in development of proposals and experiences towards Habitat III (2016). The Right to the City over the past decade has emerged as a robust academic, activist and policy endeavour. Led by non-governmental organizations and social networks (in particular Habitat International Coalition), international agencies (such as UN-HABITAT and UNESCO), and activist alliances, calls for the right to city have slowly been attended to by local and national governments and key urban institutions. The first discussions on and framework for a global charter emerged at the World Social Forum in 2002 and 2003. This framework was expanded in 2004 at the Social Forum of the Americas in Quito, then a final version completed in 2005 after the World Urban Forum in Barcelona. Since then, the charter has been inspiring cities and organisations throughout the world. For example, in 2008 Ecuador ratified a new Constitution which included the right to the city, the right to housing, as well as the right to water and sanitation. In 2010 Mexico City signed the Carta de la Ciudad de México por el Derecho a la Ciudad and more recently, the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) formally adopted a Global Charter-Agenda for Human Rights in the City in 2011. While these charters have been critical in improving (to some extent) urban living conditions, the issues and concerns of children and young people have not been prominent. This is of particular concern since children comprise a large proportion of the world’s urban population, especially in the global south. It is estimated that 60 per cent of children in the developing world will live in cities by 2025, and of that, more than half will live in poverty. As the world approaches 2015 and the end of the Millennium Development Goal, there is an opportunity to put children and young people at the forefront of post-2015 agenda in Habitat III. There are numerous organisations, networks and activists who are already involved to try to influence the agenda of Habitat III, as the ones working through the ‘Civil Society Planning Committee Towards Habitat III’ and other similar platforms. A key component in this new agenda that needs more attention is the role of children and young people. Thus this session aims to contribute towards the new agenda by focusing on children and the right to the city. This session seeks to critically re-think how children and young people are thought about and represented in a revised World Charter on the Right to the City with the aim of contributing to the development of proposals towards Habitat III and the new Habitat and Urban Agenda. In this regard, the themes in this session are broad and can include a variety of issues around children, young people and cities, as well as the (important!) relation between the rural and the urban worlds. Some main themes could be (but not limited to): • Children and housing • Children and food • Transportation, safe roads, • What makes a city child-friendly? • Street violence and children • Education and health • Play in the city • Political ecologies of children and young people If you are interested in participating in the World Café, please send an email with a short abstract to the below address (see below for information on the Café format). Please state if you would rather be part of a paper session. If there is enough interest, we can organize both formats. Deadline is October 1st, 2014. Note that we are interested in having both academics and activists participate! Laura Shillington Assistant Professor University for Peace Costa Rica [log in to unmask] *World Café format* - 2-5 presenters with one chair (time-keeper) (possible 2 (or more) back-to-back or simultaneous cafés, each with 3-4 presenters) - each presenter is responsible for one aspects/element/concern around children and right to the city - each presenter has 10 minutes to discuss the issue: outline main ideas, objectives, problems, goals, etc - after the presentation, there are 15 minutes for ‘tables’ (audience split into small groups) to discuss and contribute to issues. - Several people take notes