Parallel session 6-2: Connecting children’s participation to urban policies

Friday, 7th October 13.00 – 14.30, Bedford Hall in Bedford Tower at Dublin Castle

Eviction: Through the Eyes of Children
Dr. Katherine Rowell, Professor of Sociology at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, United States

Dr. Rowell’s research project, “Eviction and Children: Locked Out and Left Behind,” explores the long-term devastating effects of housing insecurity on the well-being of children. Dr. Rowell will be sharing community eviction data and interviews with children ages 8-13 in Dayton, Ohio to discuss the need for a children’s right perspective in supporting children experiencing housing insecurity.

Inclusive Design for Research Equipment and Environments
Manuela Maier-Hummel, HafenCity University Hamburg and University of Applied Arts and Sciences Lucerne, Switzerland

The Hamburg-based City-Science Lab of Hafencity University offers access to state oft the art human-computer-interaction technologies for multi-stakeholder workshops to engage in city planning processes. As these infrastructures are designed for adults, workshops with children have been conducted to observe how they interact with the tools and what obstacles they experience using such. The examination serves as a basis to develop child-friendly interfaces empowering children as equal participants for inclusive participatory city-planning workshops.

The School Contract: planning for a child-friendly city
Donatienne Deby, Coordinator of the Urban Revitalization Program the School Contract in the School Unit of perspective.brussels, Belgium

Perspective.brussels, the Brussels Planning Agency, via its School Service, supports financially the improvement of the school environment and its openness to the neighborhood through an urban renewed program “the School Contract”. It targets the most deprived schools located in areas that welcome a multicultural and socio-economically disadvantaged public. To define the projects that will be carried out in the School Contract, a participatory process is lead via participatory workshops with children and parents in the neighbourhood, online surveys, student DIY teams,… The issues addressed will be related to the methodologies put in place to involve children in this urban revitalization program.

The City as a School
Shany Granek Isbi, ABCIY Children and Urban Planning, The David Azrieli School of Architecture, Faculty of the Arts Tel Aviv University

The lecture will present the concept of The city as a learning space, learning from the vast diversity of human, historical, technological, and cultural urban resources. I will present the city as a unique space for place-based and community-based education, by sharing the experience of working on the project From a school in the city to a city as a school. To conclude, I would like to present shortly additional methods of working with pedagogical teams, assimilating the concept of learning in the urban space as part of the school’s learning routine.