Children’s role

Children are a crucial part of a healthy city’s life and growth. Without their participation, the community is not fully represented. Too often, lip-service is given to children’s needs, but in a healthy city, young people are part of civic life. They express opinions and take part in neighbourhood projects.

In Rouyn-Noranda, a city of 30,000 in Quebec (Canada), 5,000 young people were asked in 1987 to describe what their town would be like in the future if it were more healthy. Their ideas formed the basis of a youth agenda, presented to the City Council, which has helped to shape the city’s activities for a number of years.

Among the agenda’s initiatives were a programme of activities to highlight accomplishments by young people and steps to reduce emissions of acids and heavy metals from the smelter that is the economic lifeblood of the region. During a community forum in June 1996, a second round of projects was adopted, including plans for neighbourhood justice circles for youth and a strategy to reduce poverty.

Healthy Cities has been active in Oakland, California (US) since 1993. Even before that, the city worked in partnership with the county administration to promote the health and well-being of its residents. In several Oakland neighbourhoods, the infant death rate used to be as high as in some developing countries—more than 20 deaths per 1,000 live births. Public health officials had undertaken the usual measures: more prenatal care, nutrition programmes, counselling of mothers. But these actions had negligible effect. Community members formed a coalition to work on the problem.

That effort led to the establishment in the early 1990s of a series of coalitions of diverse people addressing issues of education, housing, economic development, security and law enforcement. At one meeting, when the discussion turned to infant mortality, representatives of some coalitions started to leave, because they felt their mandate was unrelated. Persuaded to stay, they began to see that the infant death rate is an issue not just of health but also of poverty, adolescence, education, housing and transportation.

Four years later, the rate in the neighbourhoods had dropped by half, the first decline in 25 years—because people began to address infant deaths not only as a medical problem but also as a community problem. Collaboration between agencies improved and the city won a federal grant aimed at reducing infant mortality. In addition, through the coalition process, the word spread about services that had been available all along, so more pregnant women began to take advantage of them.

Healthy Cities raised awareness among Oakland’s residents of the importance of investing in children’s well-being. In 1996, Oakland passed a 12-year budget bill appropriating 2.5 per cent of the city’s budget to children’s needs. Children were a major force in getting this legislation passed, and they are participating in deciding how to allocate funds.

In Milan (Italy), an Urban Child Project began in 1989, with UNICEF backing, to work on improving the quality of life for children, with an emphasis on their right to participation. A well-to-do city, Milan nonetheless suffers from the range of modern social ills, including poverty, crime and unequal access to community services. Research undertaken when the project began found little coordination among the many institutions dealing with children’s issues. Information about young people’s needs was disjointed, and there was no systematic monitoring of conditions.

In 1994, Milan established a Council for Child Well-being to oversee plans for children’s programmes, monitor fulfilment of child rights and assist in coordinating municipal resources. Two pilot projects were begun in 1995 to help social workers access services more efficiently, renew urban areas and encourage the participation of children and local communities.

Many benefits have resulted. Resources for services were surveyed, resulting in development of a map, called ‘Friendly spaces for us’, which was widely distributed. Children, assisted by facilitators, surveyed their neighbourhoods and prepared plans for improving them, complete with designs and models. They have carried out projects to improve parks and courtyards with the help of local artisans and municipal technicians.

More than 3,000 children have participated in Milan’s healthy cities’ activities, and the project is expanding to three additional neighbourhoods. The total population now benefiting is about 300,000.

Children in Seattle,Washington (US), similarly got involved in improving their environment through Kid’s Place. It was initiated in 1983 by a retired paediatrician so that young people would have somewhere to go for recreation other than shopping malls.

The first activity, developed by children with some adult help, was a simple questionnaire asking children about places in their community—the cleanest place, the happiest place, the most unsafe, the most stimulating.

With this survey, the children identified dangerous intersections, polluted areas, good schools and safe areas—all without an expensive study. They pointed out that public transport did not take them where they wanted to go because it was developed to carry adults to and from work. The Mayor, impressed by their effort, asked them to suggest changes in the bus routes. The routes were changed, the children’s needs were met and the buses made more money. Seattle has now developed a city-wide policy for children and youth.

Kid’s Place and similar programmes are now active in many cities in Europe, Japan and North America. The results have in-cluded new parks and play areas, pedestrian bridges, neighbourhood centres and clinics for adolescents. Young people have won approval for midnight basketball games and have persuaded principals to keep schools open late so they can be used for recreation.

These efforts have in common the participation of citizens in deciding the community’s priorities and working to achieve them. A healthy community is dynamic. It has the capacity to change with the times and with the needs of its citizens. But they cannot do it alone. Only when governments join with residents in willing partnership can urban areas become responsive to the needs and rights of all their inhabitants, young and old, poor and rich. These efforts require political will and new forms of democratic and participatory governance reoriented towards social needs.

As we enter the urban millennium, when the majority of the world’s children will be born and raised in cities, the health and well-being of young people and of future generations will depend upon our ability to create healthier cities and communities. The progress of nations will thus be closely tied to the progress of cities.