For every child
Health, Education, Equality, Protection
ADVANCE HUMANITY
For every child
Sindaci difensori dei bambini
www.unicef.it
The World Summit on Children, 30 September 1990, in New York, attended by heads of state and sponsored by UNICEF, provided the impetus for propagating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989. The following year, 1990, the Italian Committee for UNICEF initiated the Sindaci difensori dei bambini (Mayors as defenders of children) programme. The strength of this idea conceived by UNICEF is that mayors are the institutional and figurative heads of local councils and therefore, can implement the rights inherent in the Convention at a grassroots level, and are doing this on a nationwide scale. In this way, the culture of the child in local administration is deepened because all sectors of a local community are touched and maximum representation in the programme is achieved. Ideally, the needs of the child become the agenda of a city council. An integral part of the programme is that the mayors open their city council meetings periodically so that all citizens may listen to children describing their activities and to hear the council’s programme of action for children. Local schools are enlisted in the programme to teach children about local government, to stimulate their interest in the ideas propounded in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to encourage their participation in the life of the community. The office of the mayor is the source of local initiatives to facilitate participative engagement by children that embodies their rights. In these initiatives, children are working with other members of their local communities drawn from families, schools, employed labour and members of local associations; this experience teaches them about the people who compose their own community. The open sessions of local councils give adult citizens the chance to observe children as social actors expressing themselves as citizens, a role denied them prior to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The children who participate in council sessions are educated by their teachers about the history and meaning of the rules that govern local institutions and are taught systematically to observe their environment to discover how it meets their needs. A community is no longer limited to the space and people within a city’s walls, but is open to all of the problems faced by children throughout the world; children educated to recognise and solve problems are able to make a better world for all. The requests that children present to their city councils are prepared in class following thematic criteria according to the nature of the subject under debate. The problems may concern the environment, free time, cultural issues or international solidarity. Forward planning by teachers and children is essential to maximize the efficacy of their council presentations. The deliberations of the council members in open council sessions are witnessed by the children and their teachers who are then able to evaluate and comment on the proceedings. To join the Sindaci difensori dei bambini (Mayors as defenders of children) programme, please apply to a regional committee of UNICEF Italy or to the national office.
Contact
UNICEF Italia
Via V. E. Orlando, 83
00185 Rome
Italy
Telephone (+39) 06 4780 9253
Email sindaci@unicef.it
Fano: Il laboratorio "Città dei bambini"
http://www.comune.fano.ps.it/cittadeibambini/ website in Italian language.
In 1991 in Fano, the type of action called "La città dei Bambini" (Children’s City) was born, combining, in one overall innovative structure, various experiments often already tried in other countries, such as participatory planning (letting children plan urban areas), children’s city councils (giving children a voice in collective decisions), and initiatives to encourage independent mobility by children (enabling them to leave the house without being accompanied by an adult). Starting with an initial "Children’s City" workshop in Fano in 1992, the first network of cities for children was created with support from the National Research Council. This network influenced the development of many subsequent local projects and the institutional "Città Sostenibili delle bambine e dei bambini - CSDBB" (Sustainable Cities for Girls and Boys) network of the Ministry of the Environment. In 1992 Fano created a consultative Children’s Council for participatory planning. It annually submits numerous requests to the city’s Municipal Council. The Children’s Council meets at the headquarters of the Laboratorio Città dei bambini (Workshop for the Children’s City), instigated by the Municipality, to develop proposals and requests for making the city a better place to live. The latter have covered both some environmental areas and recreational activities: closing certain streets to traffic, freer access to sports installations and equipment, use of squares and condominium areas as places to play, creating play areas, possible access to a city newsletter, organising intergenerational workshops, the use to be made of the funds from the CSDBB award obtained by the city, and developing the Carta del pedone (Pedestrians’ Charter). The other activities of the project are: City for Play - days when the streets are closed for traffic in order to allow children play on them; Creative Laboratories in collaboration with schools, local organizations, the Art Institute and local business; Agenda 21 prepared by the child councillors in collaboration with schools, Municipality and the EU; proposals for a new chilren’s department at Fano’s hospital.
Contact
Il laboratorio Città dei bambini
Comune di Fano (Fano City Council)
61032 Fano
Italy
Telephone (+39) 0721/887374
Fax (+39) 0721/803273
Email lcbfano@comune.fano.ps.it
Ferrara: Città bambina
http://www.comune.fe.it/cittabambina/ website in Italian language.
The project "Città Bambina" (Child City) was established in 1993 as a cultural challenge to rethink the city from the children’s point of view, from their right to know and to participate in family, community and social life. The project emerged from the working group “Spazi urbani e infanzia” (Urban spaces and childhood), which is itself composed of volunteers involved in urban and child issues; officials from the municipal education, transportation, urban planning, and environmental departments; child psychologists; architects; city council members; and other stakeholders (NGOs, Associations, volunteer consultants, etc.). The main objectives of the "Città Bambina" project - which fall broadly under the areas of environmental, cultural, and social interventions - include the following: to critically rethink how to create a city fit for children, which ultimately means creating a city for all citizens; to develop an array of prevention and social intervention programs in civic education and participation, environment, and city and community quality of life; to share and support childhood-related initiatives promoted by the local governments, NGOs and institutions; to promote a re-envisioning of the city as a set of inter-connected spaces and interests, rather than as a series of fragmented sectors and departments (traffic, education, culture, etc.); and to plan an after-school program with a wide array of activities (cultural, instructional, recreational, etc.) which are synchronized with the regular school curricula.
Contact
Comune di Ferrara (Ferrara City Council)
P.zza del Municipio, 2
44100 Ferrara
Italy
Telephone (+39) 0532 419250 / 248172
Fax (+39) 0532 419252
Child Friendly Pistoia
www.comune.pistoia.it/amica_bambini/amica.html
This project marked the beginning of a major campaign to improve road safety for children and to lessen the levels of pollution caused by traffic. The project is composed of micro-actions that target particular problems. "Adopting the river Brana": schools near the river have become involved in this action (two primary schools and a junior high school). The children have worked with enthusiasm and studied the history and ecosystem of the environment along the river. They have discovered that a protected species of fish lives in the river, the stickleback. In Pistoia this fish is called "foetto" because of the red mark on its belly. The name of this fish has been adopted as the name of the route. "Safe routes round the school C.Collodi": since year 2000 some children have begun to go to school alone. Special signs have placed near the school. New figures, the "grandparents friends", are present at the time entry and come out of the school. Little yellow bears are drawned on pavements along the safe routes. "The Meeting Square": the children from the "C. Collodi" primary school set out to conquer the unnamed square. The space near the school was used as a car park. Older students have hepled make the route from the school to the square cleaner and greener. At last the children have a place to meet and play, exchange messages, and go on to school together. The Meeting Square has become a welcoming, safe and useful place.
Contact
Comune di Pistoia (Pistoia City Council)
Palazzo Comunale, Piazza del Duomo
51100 Pistoia
Italy
Telephone (+39) 0573371201
Fax (+39) 0573371289
Email sindaco@comune.pistoia.it
Laboratorio Cremona dei Bambini
www.rccr.cremona.it/doc_comu/istruzione/bambini/
Laboratorio Cremona dei Bambini (Laboratory of Child Friendly Cremona) started in 1996 with the first expressive workshops that offered children and parents the opportunity to meet, play and express themselves in the City’s premises outside school. It aims at recognizing children as citizens and taking them into account as parameters for developing the city. It promotes children’s rights and needs to move outside home independently and safely, choose their own friends and make experiments. Their point of view should be taken into account when designing public spaces in Cremona or one of its suburbs. Participating in urban planning will then raise children’s awareness on how they can change their environment. In 1998 the Laboratory became member of the International Project "La Città dei bambini" (searching by title in the CFC database) created by Francesco Tonucci.
Contact
Laboratorio Cremona dei Bambini
c/o Servizio Politiche Educative
Comune di Cremona
Via del Vecchio Passeggio,1
26100 Cremona
Italy
Telephone (+39) 0372/407917
Fax (+39) 0372/407921
Email lab_bambini@comune.cremona.it
Belluno Città dei Bambini
http://bambini.comune.belluno.it/progetto/progetto.htm
In 1991 Belluno became the first provincial capital in Italy to set up a municipal council open to the younger generation. The Belluno Città dei Bambini (Belluno as a Children's City) project group is structured so as to converge all departments of the municipal administration. Periodic meetings are held to plan and monitor activities and work out the best system of coordination among the various line departments to carry out the numerous activities with a holistic approach. In Belluno, the municipal administration started the Informa Immigrati (Inform the Immigrants) service, which encourages initiatives in education on multiculturalism, such as creating a multiethnic calendar, the main theme of which is a traditional Albanian tale drawn by Belluno children. The Education to Diversity project has created a multiethnic workshop with the active involvement of teachers and cultural mediators, which instigates training courses. In school classes and in libraries, cross-cultural mediation activities in favour of immigrant children and their families have also been held.
Turin: Città dei Bambini
http://www.comune.torino.it
In 1992, the Turin local authority began a campaign to educate local children about political life. A broad cross-section
of the community was enlisted to teach the children: city council administrators, teachers, university lecturers, legal specialists, sociologists and publicists. As a
consequence of that campaign, twenty children were elected in 1994 to constitute Turin's first Consiglio Comunale dei
Ragazzi (Municipal Children's Council), commonly known as the CCR. The children were given a budget of five thousand lire
to administer. They used the money mainly for environmental improvements. An important outcome of the CCR in Turin was
the improved relationship gained between the council members and the adults mentoring them.
Turin is also a member of many national and international charters or programmes: Educational Cities, Europolis 2000, Urbanet (the European Urban Education Network)
, Urban II, Diedec (Developing Cross-cultural Education through Cooperation), Clara (Concerted Local Action to Raise
Achievement), Città per i Diritti Umani (Cities for Human Rights); Rete Pinacoteche Arte Ragazzi ("Youth Art Gallery
Network"); Cives, Coordinamento Italiano Video e Scuola ("Italian Video and School Coordination"). In Turin,
the participatory planning workshops focus on upgrading public green spaces and on mobility. There are various
projects: restructuring school yards; participatory planning to transform the urban situation, by rehabilitating
courtyards, disused industrial areas, green spaces of schools and neighbourhoods (transforming a stretch of road;
planning a square and restoring it); projects for safe routes in three wards; the national competition 'La scuola
progetta la città' (The school plans the city). In Turin, a cross-cultural centre and a welcome centre for families
and mothers with foreign children have been opened, and a CD-ROM produced on cross-cultural courses as educational
material for schools, associations and staff involved. Festivals and events have been organised, cross-cultural
mediation services, twinning between schools and projects on bilingualism begun, and school introduction activities
organised for Roma and Sinti students.
Ostuni: Laboratorio Città dei Ragazzi
In the municipality of Ostuni (Brindisi), it is considered essential to direct attention and action primarily at
the places where social exclusion may be greatest, especially in school, where children at risk are present. As a
consequence of this approach, the Laboratorio Città dei Ragazzi (Young People's City Workshop) also makes it possible
to interact daily with young people from families manifestly at risk, allegedly reducing the level of petty crime
to the point that complaints against adolescents almost disappear. The theme of protection from hardship is incorporated
in the range of policies aimed at preventing exclusion. Starting from the excluded social groups, the whole city has
been involved in actions aimed to encourage child participation. The workshop in the Ostuni summer centre is intended to
let children feel, in an institutional setting, 'the need to be protagonists in the city more and to exercise full
citizenship, being listened to and finding consideration and a welcome for their proposals' (a town councillor). The
workshop is closely linked with the whole area, which is the real place for the children's work. The summer centre is
where all the initiatives start from, in 'an explosion of ideas, experiences, of doing, creating, participating, of
affecting the city' (a councillor), from a 'space that catalyses a whole series of possibilities, where new ideas,
projects, services are born, a context that promotes participation' (one of the staff). The Municipality of Ostuni,
in collaboration with the schools, annually promotes the Mediterranean Children's Week to build up a culture of welcome,
identifying strategies and paths to multiply opportunities for dialogue and exchange through artistic, literary,
theatrical and play workshops.
San Giorgio a Cremano (NA): Laboratorio Città delle bambine e dei bambini
www.comune.san-giorgio-a-cremano.na.it/
San Giorgio a Cremona adopted a biennial programme of research to analyse the viability of the town and to develop methodologies that would work locally to bring about improvements to the town. This participative programme involved the local children in analysing town planning problems to see both the positive and negative aspects of the current layout, and in researching the town's history through examination of archives and old photographs, as well as field-trips into the town's centre. This innovative project resulted in three conclusions: new spatial conceptions are possible to develop in short periods of time and at very little cost; improvements should be made to the roads near schools and to the play areas of those schools; and that green spaces must be made available for unself-conscious child's play. The municipality of San Giorgio a Cremano has also launched the "Forum dei giovani" (Youth's Forum). It aims to involve young citizens to participate in the decision-making process of their city.
Novellara: La Tavola Rotonda
http://www.comune.novellara.re.it/statuto.htm to download the
Statute of La Tavola Rotonda in Italian language.
One particularly significant children's town council is in Novellara (Reggio Emilia). Called La Tavola Rotonda (The Round Table), it is the municipality's most important initiative, linking up ninety per cent of the other initiatives. With help from an adult facilitator, it brings together boys and girls from the fourth through the eighth grades, and for some aspects also adolescents from upper-middle schools. It is subdivided into five subgroups dealing with various topics (environment, solidarity, sport, leisure and school); it has organised environmental, cultural and solidarity initiatives and has been involved in town planning. The participation of adolescents has led to creation of the Young People's Forum (14-18 years), with the same objectives as the Round Table. At Novellara a participation scale is used, with at one end a level of non-participation that corresponds to denial of the person of the child (compulsion, suffering, frustration, sense of uselessness), in the middle a level of silence and dependency of the person (lack of justification for the assigning of tasks, accepting direction by others), and at the other end affirmation of the person (importance of the action for the person, assumption of responsibility, resources available, amusement, involvement, happiness, sense of importance). Participation here means affirming the person, just as lack of participation means negation of the person, and forcing participation means reducing the person to silence or dependency.
Milano: Il bambino e l'ambiente urbano e naturale
www.provincia.milano.it/serv_soc/infanzia_adolescenza/bambino_ambiente/
Province of Milan in Italian language
The programme Il bambino e l'ambiente urbano e naturale (the child and the urban environment) is realized with the financial resources of the Law 285/97 by the Province of Milan (Italy). It aims to transform the city into a sustainable city that meets the needs of its children and supports their families. The entire project has been a complex mesh of micro-actions targeting particular problems and broader initiatives that involved whole districts within the city. Local resources were used to their maximum effect so that the capacity of local people to sustain the improvements would be optimised. Many carefully programmed initiatives were launched under this project to transform Milan into a more sustainable city. The project has published a book-game "Curiosando nel tempo e nello spazio" by Ray Lorenzo entirely dedicated and prepared for and with children of second year of primary school and the first year of secondary school.
