In Lisbon, there is a Children's Council under construction

It is often said that children are the citizens of the future, but in fact, they can already be active in the present - can be heard and involved in the decisions that adults make and that also affect them, such as the design of the streets where they live, walk, and play. For this reason, the Bicicultura cooperative wants to constitute a Permanent Children's Council within its structure. "An all-children's hub, led by them, where they can train participatory processes and group decision-making. Where they can learn to expose ideas, reach consensus, decide, and manage the available budget."adds Ana Pereira, Bicicultura's representative.

Ana's idea is that this Children's Council can autonomously present ideas for the street, the neighborhood, or the entire city. "We will have an allocated budget, which they will be able to stretch. This budget management will also be part of the learning process."explains Ana. As Bicicultura is a cooperative focused on promoting the bicycle in urban space, it is expected that the work of this Children's Council will focus on mobility and public space issueswith the two wheels always present. "These can be fruition ideas, like spending the entire budget on bike rides around town. But also proposals for moms or dads to enjoy the bike themselves, if that's their wish." Or they can be ideas to promote bicycle use and culture among peers. The important thing is to allow children to decide collectively.

The Children's Council can also have a say on each of the various Biciculture projects - such as Bike Trains to School. "We want to have within the cooperative a department representing childrenso that in all the projects we think about starting or that are already going on, we can involve them and ask them what they think or how that project could be more interesting and inclusive for them.explains Ana. "We want the children to get used to being heard and we can, in that way, enrich the work we are doing by increasing age diversity."

Ana Pereira still has many questions about how this Children's Council can work in practice and the details are still being worked out. But the idea is launched and there is a great certainty in Ana's mind: Such initiatives that work on active citizenship among children can instill good habits of participation for the future. Liliana Madeira, from APSI (Association for the Promotion of Child Safety), agrees: "It's important that we start creating this culture of participation from a young age. If children get used to going to assemblies to present their ideas and discuss them, it's a very good habit they gain for a much more participatory future." In essence, the Children's Council can function as a school of democracy and citizenship that teaches the little ones how to participate in the city's issues and stimulates their creativity.

Ana and Liliana have been working this year on the international project Bicycle Heroeswhich we talked about hereand that is what inspired them to launch the Children's Council. Defined by a Dutch association, the BYCS, o Bicycle Heroes was imported to Lisbon by Bicicultura and APSI, and ran throughout 2022 with several actions with children.

The latest initiative from Bicycle Heroes consisted precisely of a small experience of Children's Council - During a Sunday afternoon in late November, in a room at the Arroios Parish Council, boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 10 worked on problems and solutions related to the city and the bicycle. In front of them, they had large A3 sheets with problems identified in previous sessions, and they could associate solutions to each problem - whether those solutions were already written on small pieces of paper (which also came from brainstorming previous), whether the children were currently writing or drawing.

The session ended with the presentation of the different ideas to the adults in the room; besides the children's own mothers and fathers, there were adults from the Instituto da Mobilidade e dos Transportes (IMT) or from MUBi - Associação pela Mobilidade Urbana em Bicicleta, for example, but also from the Lisbon and Amadora City Halls.

According to Ana and Liliana, the development of Bicycle Heroes had some adversities, such as a difficulty in keeping the children from one activity to the next (the project had new faces throughout its course) and a too long calendar, which led to the different actions that were carried out losing the connection between them. But this experience allowed them to understand how they can adapt the concept of citizenship for children to the Portuguese reality and to the local context of each parish or municipality. "We are finishing a project but we are starting a new way of bringing children's voices into what is the design of the city"Liliana says, adding that children should be given space and opportunity to imagine their city and discuss it with the people who design, build, and change it. "We have to go about creating solutions. Sometimes those solutions are not yet perfect or incomplete, and they can be added to other ideas. And we can go about gathering ideas and ways to go about building a city that is very good for cycling, for example."

This work to foster more active and participatory children is an effort "cultural" that can start "at the school level"Liliana points out, where the little ones can learn how to "organizing their information, representing the ideas of various colleagues, and sharing those ideas with a collective". At the same time, local associations and cooperatives may have funds for the children to realize the projects they have conceived - this also allows them to understand what it is to have a budget, what it is to be limited by it, and "what can we do to get the necessary money to do those things we want to do but for which the money available is not enough". "This is the reality of all of us adults"points out the head of APSI.

O Children's Council that Ana is putting together in Bicicultura will allow us to expand the work developed in Bicycle Heroes and will, as in this project, be more focused on mobility and bicycle issues; but Liliana admits that this concept can be extended to other themes. That is, there can be different working groups of children for different issues, and then these groups can sit in the assemblies of each parish or municipality. "With Bicycle Heroes we've been working with Lisbon and Amadora, but we want to expand to other municipalities and also parishes, and have in each of them kids who can be local heroes." For now, Bicicultura and APSI will still make a more in-depth assessment of the Bicycle Heroes and to understand what is the best methodology for the future Children's Council (APSI admits to collaborate again with Bicicultura in this project) and how such a children's department in Bicicultura can work.

However, although this is still a project under construction, interested adults can already register their children through this form. The Council will be open to youth and children from 6 years old and up, and participation will be free. As mentioned, the children will have their own budget and will also have help from adult volunteers who will only act as facilitators. The Children's Council that will be created by Bicicultura can dialogue with the dynamics that already exist in the municipalities or parishes. In Lisbon, the Citizens Council started this year, a consultative body with the purpose of presenting and proposing ideas to the City Council, but to participate you have to be at least 16 years old. In the Lisbon Municipal Assembly, the Children's Assembly project started this year; two sessions have been held so far.

From the Children's Council that closed, at the end of November, the project Bicycle Heroes in Lisbon, ideas have emerged such as bike rides where kids can pedal leisurely with their friends (a kind of "Weekend Bike Trains"), a bike loan service at schools for friends who don't have one, stylish bike covers for those rainy days, or more "valleys of silence" - i.e. parks that are quiet and at the same time able to offer different activities. Ideas that the adults in the room pointed out and that, perhaps, will come to fruition - or that can be starting points for new Children's Councils.