P4Play UCC and Cork Child Friendly Cities brought together children and teens from Japan and Cork Rebel Youth Creatives to discuss the importance of children’s participation in the development of their cities, on Good Friday, 29th March.

UCC’s P4Play programme in conjunction with Cork Child Friendly Cities Initiative welcomed a delegation of 20 children and members of Tokyo Metropolitan Government from Japan, 10 members of Cork City Comhairle na nOg, and 10 members of Rebel Youth Creatives Cork to discuss the importance of children’s participation in city planning for Child Friendly Cities.

This visit stemmed from work by UCC P4Play researcher Rianne Jansens, who coordinated a special visit to Cork from a team from the Child-Oriented Policy office, Tokyo Metropolitan Government of Japan. In September 2023 Ms. Biwa Matsuda and Ms Kato Nanase visited Ireland on behalf of the Tokyo Metropolitan government, to explore ideas about supporting children’s participation in urban planning and provision. This is closely aligned with Rianne’s research in an Irish context, particularly as it relates to children’s participation in the design of playgrounds.

Background:

Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) is the largest municipality (city council) in Japan, which has 14 million population. Two of these 14 million inhabitants of Tokyo are children/young people in a dense multicultural city in the most-ageing country in the world. There seems to be an increasing awareness that attention needs to be paid to children and to young families as the birth rate is so low. Therefore, to strengthen connections with children and young people within their communities, TMG established the Liaison Office for Child-Oriented Policies in 2022 to aim to achieve the society ‘filled with children’s smiles’. Ahead of the establishment of the Liaison Office, the TMG Basic Ordinance on Children came into effect in 2021. This ordinance aims to promote children’s policies from children’s points of view in accordance with the spirit of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child.

The Irish Visit:

As part of the programme of work to develop such child-oriented policies and practices, Biwa and Kato visited Ireland to find out more about how we approach this work here:

• They had meetings in Dublin with people from DCEDIY, with Dublin City Council, with Dublin Comhairle na nOg, with Hub na nOg.
• In Cork, they met with our P4play and play colleagues in the Cork City council, and in Crann. Denise Cahill (Cork Healthy Cities and Child Friendly Cities) explained and showed how grass roots developments in our city led to innovations and creating greenery and playspaces for example Blackrock Pier and Marina Park.
• In Crann Centre, the Head of Crann, Padraig Mallon and colleagues showed the visitors the centre including the play and leisure area which was a project that was co-designed by the children and young people of Crann; and explained how a family-centred approach is practiced, and how they provide services fitting to the families’ needs in participation.

Back in Ireland for a second time, they were now exploring how to practice children’s participation in decision-making processes for themselves as policy makers as well as for the young people who will form the Comhairle na nOg of Tokyo. They visited the Lord Mayor of Cork’s office in the morning, coordinated by Denise Cahill from Cork Child Friendly Cities, and met with Dan Boyle, the representative from the Lord Mayors Office, and with Elaine Howley and the Comhairle Cork City Youth team. They then came to UCC in the afternoon, coordinated by Dr. Helen Lynch, Co-PI of the P4Play Programme, and met with Fiona Quinn, Cork ETB’s Local Creative Youth Partnership coordinator and the LCYP youth forum, the Rebel Youth Creatives.

‘Hearing children’s voices and reflecting the voices to policies are the most important things in Japan too. However, we have only a few facilities, parks and urban developments with children’s point of view in Japan. We think if children in Tokyo are able to visit such facilities, parks or urban developments during their stay in Ireland, their understanding of children’s rights will deepen more’

Biwa Matsuda, Deputy Director for Planning and Coordination, and Liaison Office for Child-Oriented Policies, Tokyo Metropolitan Government

Dr Shirley Martin and Dr Helen Lynch from University College Cork and members of the Cork Child Friendly City Forum have been awarded a small research grant to explore the development of a new Child Friendly City network within the UNIC cities. University College Cork is one of the founding partners of UNIC, the European University of Cities in Post-Industrial Transition. UNIC is an alliance of ten universities across Europe who are working with their cities and with one another to tackle urban challenges and develop shared, sustainable futures.

The new Child Friendly City network would identify and support the development of best practice strategies for children and young people’s participation in the planning and implementation of child friendly cities and communities.

The project team are developing a short literature review on the participation of children and young people in the implementation processes of Child Friendly cities in the ten UNIC cities. The team are also organising online networking activities and forums for adults and children involved in child friendly city initiatives in three UNIC cities (Cork, Istanbul and Zagreb).

Community Parks and Playgrounds: Intergenerational Participation through Universal Design – National Disability Authority (nda.ie) and on Researchgate (19) (PDF) Community Parks and Playgrounds Community Parks and Playgrounds: Intergenerational Participation through Universal Design Final Report For The Centre for Excellence in Universal Design at the National Disability Authority (researchgate.net)

(20+) Video | Facebook

European Joint Doctorate in Occupational Science – P4PLAY Research Programme

1. MAY 2021- OUR PHD STUDENTS JOIN WITH FREEDOM OF CITY WORK
2. SEPT 2021 BRING TOGETHER OUR TEAM FOR DATA ANALYSIS OF COLLECTED DATA- SUBMITTED THE FIRST CHILDRENS SUBMISSION TO CITY DEVELOMENT PLAN
3. CORK FREEDOM OF THE CITY SUMMARY OF CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE’S SUBMISSIONS | Cork City Council’s Online Consultation Portal

1. MARCH 2022; THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS INCLUSIVE PLAY SEMINAR AND SITE VISITS- Through the Looking Glass event recording edited HD 1080p – YouTube

Let’s Play Cork | Cork Sports Partnership

https://www.childinthecity.org/2022-conference/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Child-in-the-City-2022_Dublin_book-of-abstracts_UPDATED.pdf

Social-Stories-2023.pdf (nanonagleplace.ie)