For every child
Health, Education, Equality, Protection
ADVANCE HUMANITY
For every child
Buenos Aires, Ciudad Amiga de los Niños
"Buenos Aires, Ciudad Amiga de los Niños" (Buenos Aires, Child-Friendly City) is a project established by the municipality
of Buenos Aires, Argentina, that aims to improve the city for all its inhabitants through the creation of social spaces
that accommodate and favour the needs of children. Basically, it tries to "govern with children" in order to guarantee
children the right to be heard and to participate actively in the city's community life. The fundamental concept is to
give a voice to girls and boys so that they can declare their vision and propose solutions to problems occuring at a local,
neighbourhood level or at a city-wide level. This project was established in 2001 by the municipality of Buenos Aires and
its stakeholders are: Council of Children's and Youth's Rights (Consejo de los Derechos de Niñas, Niños y Adolescentes),
Council of Environmental Urban Planning (Consejo del Plan Urbano Ambiental), Representatives from Departments of
Decentralization and Participation Policy, Education and Public Works, Association in favour of Children's Rights
(Asociacion por los Derechos de la Infancia-ADI) and UNICEF Argentina. In 2003, a pilot project was developed that
established a group of child-promoters whose main objective was to extend this initiative at the local level. Moreover,
the first children's council was established in the neighbourhood of "La Boca". Children and adolescents developed four
projects and presented them to the local authorities on 5 November 2003. The issues focused on by these projects were:
violence and abuse, nutrition, cleaning up and environmentally defending a small river flowing through La Boca, the
Riachuelo, developing a new concept in recreation and entertainment. The 2004 plan envisages two main steps: continuation
of the work with the children's council in La Boca; opening new children's councils in the 6 Management and Participation
Centers (CGP's - Centros de Gestion y Participacion) in the city of Buenos Aires. An inter-governmental and inter-sectorial
commission has also been established (with the same participants above mentioned plus the Department of the Environment
and the Department for Social Promotion). The commission's work involves: defining the programme's guidelines, monitoring,
evaluating, overseeing activities and the locations in which the projects will be carry out; designating representatives
for the Management and Participation Centres and local commissions; establishing mechanisms and a participatory plan for
the election of children's councils at local level; promoting activities to publicise the project and all its stakeholders
in the city, the schools, and the NGOs. The Council of Children's and Youth's Rights (a part of the Commission) is
responsible for monitoring and evaluating the programme throughout the entire city of Buenos Aires.
Rosario: La ciudad de los niños
The project "La ciudad de los niños" (Children's City) in Rosario was established in June 1996 when an
agreement was signed between the Mayor of the Rosario municipality and UNICEF Argentina. After that, an intergovernmental
commission "La ciudad y los niños" was established by decree. The commission was coordinated by the Secreteria de
Promocion Social (Department of Social Promotion) and integrated into it were representatives of each
department of the City Council (Secretarias del Departemento Ejecutivo). The idea of building a child-friendly city
in Rosario was supported and stimulated by the visit to Rosario in 1996 of Francesco Tonucci, an Italian pedagogue
responsible for the international project "La città dei bambini" (Children's City). (Information on this project can be
found through a title search). The project was created as a strategic plan aimed at: integrating social, political and
economic sectors; encouraging administrative decentralization within six districts,and developing community participation;
organizing an urban plan for the recovery of public spaces in which social equity and integration would flourish.
The main objective of this project is to create institutional mechanisms that guarantee the child's right to be heard
and to participate as a citizen, and to stimulate the child's creative and active intervention in the city's
transformation. Different activities have been devised to accomplish these objectives: Children's councils
(Consejos de Niños) as institutional spaces to give voice to children; teams of child planners (Niños Proyectistas)
contribute their ideas to the urban planning process; and the Laboratory of Ideas (Laboratorio o Fabrica de Ideas),
in collaboration with a group of local government experts, works with children to facilitate the development of their
ideas and proposals for a better city. With reference to children's councils, the plan is to create one children's
council for each district (six in total). Up to date, two councils have been created in the North and West districts.
The first one was created in 1997 in the North district. A council has a one year mandate and it calls a meeting once
a week to discuss the main questions. The children's councils work closely with the intergovernmental commission
"La ciudad y los niños" and organize meetings with neighborhood representatives, NGOs and the mass media to broadcast
their proposals. A child-friendly city gives a central place in urban planning to children's rights and enforces the
idea of good governance and municipal management; this in turn integrates children as active stakeholders in the city's
development. In the project that changed Rosario into a child-friendly city, the stakeholders have tried to guarantee
that all its children are protagonists in building their city.
