Rosário Farmhouse, President of the Lisbon City Council, proposes a children's assembly - a consultative and informal body to give voice to the experiences, concerns, and needs of the little ones.
While Carlos Moedas suggested during his election campaign a Citizens' Assembly, Rosário Farmhouse, President of the Lisbon Municipal Assembly, proposes a children's assembly. The aim is to establish an informal consultative body to give voice to the experiences, concerns and needs of the little ones.
"This is a proposal for a partnership between the Municipal Assembly, the City Council, the Parish Councils and the city's schools, to set up an informal consultative body that brings together two children from each of the city's twenty-four parishes, one boy and one girl, aged between eight and twelve, to give their opinion on public policies involving children, namely education, sport, housing, public space, culture, social rights, safety, etc.", reads a statement on the 62nd anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959) and the 32nd anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), marked on the 20th.
A city for children is a better city for everyone
In 1996, Francesco Tonucci, an Italian thinker and cartoonist, published Children's City, a book that talks about giving children a place in the governance of cities and which, 25 years on, is still relevant today, as Público recently wroteduring an interview with Tonucci. The work of the author of Children's City influenced the constitution of the City of Children laboratory and international networkof which the municipality of Valongo became a part this year, after launching an initiative to get the little ones to make urban planning proposals with their families and educatorsThis participatory process is part of the revision of the municipality's Municipal Master Plan (PDM).
Children use the cities designed by adults and have no say in the matter. Despite this, there are various initiatives to make public space theirs too, not least because, as Tonucci believes, a city tailored to children can be a city with a higher quality of life for everyone. O Brincapéis a project that has temporarily closed some of the city's streets to traffic to allow the little ones to play... and the older ones too.
Liliana Madureira, one of the promoters of this project, told us in October that currently "children can only play at a certain time and in a certain space"For example, at the weekend in a garden they can't get to on their own. It's about bringing play back to the street, to the neighborhood streets. In AprilA group of fathers and mothers had the participation of their children in presenting a suggestion for improving the public space in front of a school in Olivais. "Some students had a lesson on road safety and drew several pictures of what they would like the outdoor space next to the school to look like"said the group of parents.
Lisbon has already had a children's assembly
The Lisbon Children's Assembly wanted "to give voice to children's experiences, concerns, needs and expectations in order to build a more child-friendly city" and, for the time being, it is just a challenge launched by Rosário Farmhouse as President of the Municipal Assembly, who in the same note published on the website of this body reads that "the right to participate in all matters concerning them is enshrined in Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child".
"The initiative seeks to promote access for Lisbon's children to new learning opportunities for political participation; to develop children's communication skills, interpersonal skills and critical thinking skills; to provide dialogue between children and political decision-makers; to empower children to participate in city government and thus promote future participation throughout their lives."The Farmhouse note goes on to say.
The integration of children in the city's decisions had already happened in 2006, when the municipality managed by Carmona Rodrigues (PSD) created a children's assembly and a children's office in the town hall. According to Diário de NotíciasThis body was made up of primary and secondary school students, 60 from public schools and 20 from private schools, and made proposals to be studied by the municipality, such as the creation of green spaces next to the city's libraries. This assembly functioned until mid-2013.
