• Improving children’s education for a sustainable urban future

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    15/11/2022

    URBACT is helping European cities find – and share – new ways to support children’s education for a better future. 

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      From organic school gardens and innovative teaching methods, to community courses and better links with families, health specialists or local businesses, URBACT is improving kids’ chances with innovative approaches to education.

     

    Education is central to sustainable urban futures. Whether it’s to fight inequality and social exclusion, boost a town’s attractiveness, or help young people protect the environment, its vital role in building better cities is reflected in many URBACT networks past and present.

     

    Let’s take a look at what some of these cities are doing…

     

    The city as an orchestrator

     

    Why are city authorities well placed to improve education policy? “Because the municipality has proximity to the citizens,” says Mireia Sanabria, Lead Expert for the URBACT transfer network ON BOARD – Connecting cities through education. “They can directly understand, visit, dialogue with communities to know their specific needs. And they have a brokerage role.”

     

    As well as providing technical or financial support, space and equipment, cities can coordinate groups of local education stakeholders – schools, families, companies, associations, researchers, municipal departments and higher government. One example is Viladecans (ES), whose Education Innovation Network (EIN) approach is being adopted by five ON BOARD partner cities. This partnership inspired Nantes (FR) and Albergaria-a-Velha (PT) to develop new student wellbeing initiatives to improve academic results through happy, engaged learning. “We can provide schools with help, resources, and protection so they can dare to do things differently,” adds Sanabria.

     

    Social inclusion and children’s rights

     

    Laura Colini, Programme Expert for URBACT, points out that while the European Pillar of Social Rights states that everyone has the right to affordable early childhood education and good quality care, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union recognises education as a right, opportunities for children vary enormously across the EU – and from one city neighbourhood to another.

     

    “Recent estimates show under 17s to be the most vulnerable to risks of poverty, particularly children from ethnic minorities or with migrant backgrounds. In 2018, 20 000 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum in Europe in 2018, 40% of them in Germany and Italy,” says Colini. “This is why, the way the education system handles inequalities in family backgrounds can have an enormous impact, due to the crucial years pupils spend in schools.”

     

    “The question of children and education should be treated with a holistic perspective, involving families and schools,” Fintan Farrel, Director of the European Anti-Poverty Network, said in an interview for the EU Urban Agenda poverty partnership (Colini & Tosics 2017).

     

    This is just the sort of integrated approach that URBACT champions. During the URBACT StayTuned network, for example, the Ampelokipi - Menemeni municipality in Thessaloniki (EL) formed a strong team that works closely with school directors and local Roma people, deepening the administration’s understanding of Early Leaving from Education and Training. This led the municipality to adapt its courses, information and support to the needs of Roma children and parents, both in schools and in a new easily-accessible Community Centre. “Through the collaboration and exchange of experience with partners, the way the municipality understands its problem and role, as well as the methodology for managing challenges in the field of education and training, has changed,” says Magdalini Rousseti, Ampelokipi – Menemeni’s Director of Social Policy, Education, Sports & Culture.

     

    As for Groningen (NL), with an aging population and jobs to fill, the city teamed up with its universities, academic hospital, citizens, employers and cultural institutions, to help international students and professionals “come, stay and be active”. Six medium-sized cities are now learning from this experience in the URBACT Welcoming International Talent network, including Bielsko-Biala (PL) who were recently inspired to open their own “Centre for Integration of Foreigners” MyBB.

     

    Macerata (IT), won an URBACT Good Practice label in 2017 for its co-regeneration of urban green spaces around inclusion and children’s education. The Pace neighborhood green space has since become a place for meeting, education and social inclusion for the whole community – grandparents, parents, teenagers and children. The Les Friches NGO behind the scheme says, “Our participatory action has given positive effects. There’s now a new and integrated community that lives in the common space.”

     

    Of URBACT’s many networks set up to help cities fight exclusion, here are just three more examples linked with education: Prevent – “Involving parents in the prevention of early school leaving”; ONSTAGE – “Music schools for social change”; and Rumourless Cities – “Prevent discrimination, strengthen cohesion”, led Amadora (PT), where cities work with art and theatre to prevent discrimination and rumours against children with migrant backgrounds.

     

    Methodology and tools for better learning

     

    URBACT not only helps cities solve urban problems by strengthening cross-sector participation locally while learning from peers across the EU – it also brings municipalities new skills and methodologies. For some networks this is the main focus. The URBACT Playful Paradigm network for example, seeks new ways to engage stakeholders better in urban development. The eight partner cities use games to promote “social inclusion, healthy lifestyles and energy awareness, intergenerational and cultural mediation, place-making and economic prosperity”. Klaipėda City Public Health Bureau (LT), wants to work with more schools to introduce more playful, physical activities for schoolchildren, adapting techniques from their EU partners. “The network is a good framework to generate new ideas, spread the good practice,” says Laura Kubiliutė, Head of Klaipėda’s public health monitoring and projects department. One such idea is a playful Wednesday afternoon for young and elderly people at the county library, with quizzes and board games, helping strengthen links between generations, tackle loneliness, and foster social inclusion.

     

    Small-but-powerful responsible citizens

     

    From helping children enjoy nature to rewarding schools that lower their carbon footprint and support local organic farmers, cities of all sizes are helping shape the next generation of healthier, environmentally-conscious citizens.

     

    “Working with schools is fundamental to collectively learn about rights and values in social, environmental and economic terms, because through schools one can reach out not only children but parents, families, the wider community, also those that are not active in civil society,” says Laura Colini.

     

    Torres Vedras (PT), is a good example here. They have a rapidly expanding sustainable food school programme with 11 school organic gardens growing tomatoes, beans, peppers and other fruit and veg. Children already learn about food production, seasonality – and identifying the organic food label in shops. Still, the URBACT BioCanteens network has brought new ideas, including “freshness” criteria to improve public procurement for suppliers, and Mouans-Sartoux’s (FR) food-waste reduction scheme that covers extra costs of healthy, organic school meals. “For us it was: ‘wow!’, a very great idea, because we’d never thought about this before!” says Paula Rodrigues, Responsible for managing biocanteens and school gardens for the municipality.

     

    Torres Vedras launched a pilot project in a school whose vegetable patch is the size of 10 parking spaces, and World Food Day celebrations last a whole month. Here, having followed the food from planting to harvesting and delivery to the school kitchens, 150 six-to-ten year-olds are now learning to reduce food waste and weigh their leftovers so menus can be adapted. For Rodrigues, their new understanding of food waste is the “golden key to close the cycle”. The city will expand the scheme to nine more schools this year to reach a total of 1200 children.

     

    Why are children good ambassadors for a sustainable future? “Because they are the future!” says Rodrigues.

     

     

    There are many more stories of cities that have developed innovative, sustainable solutions involving education and children:

     

     

     

  • Play and grow

    Italy
    Macerata

    Co-regeneration of urban green spaces

    Marzia Fratini
    Pedagogical Coordinator Kindergartens
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    Summary

    QUIsSI Gioca! is a pilot project for the re-use of playful urban green areas, overseen by the municipality of Macerata (IT), encouraging participatory methodologies and integration. It relates to a public green area in the Quartiere Pace, a neighbourhood with a high number of immigrants, a junior high school, municipal and private child-care centres, and a primary school. The purpose was to rethink this area, highly frequented by children, and rich in cultural diversity.
    The project explored co-management of the green space, a different concept of security, the creation of aggregation contexts, and social inclusion. It involved building games, and defining spaces together with inhabitants. This first operation gave start to QUIsSICRESCE, a participatory planning project to improve the outdoor space of five municipal child-care centres, to share a different approach to outdoor education.

    The solutions offered by the good practice

    The starting project was divided into six self-construction dates during which the participants have achieved together a playful device, starting from the track on the ground of a square, the labyrinth. The Association Les Friches has played a role in facilitating the dialogue. The materials were selected from those stored in the municipal nursery: all natural (wood and stone) or recovered from older games, furniture, floors or green areas fencing, from pruning or removal of hazardous trees.

    In collaboration with the Meridiana social cooperative, and with the support of the environment technical office, it has organised the construction site, planned jobs to support activities with the children and done the work of making the area safe. We tried to work together, with appropriate approaches, with all the children according to age groups.

    The same approach was then applied in green areas of the five municipal child-care centres through a two-year process of participatory planning, training and self-training which involved the teachers, parents, local administrators and technicians. The project has initiated a process of change still in place, following five steps carried out in the first year: World Cafè, report, planimetry, planning.

    Building on the sustainable and integrated approach

    The project is an example of an integrated approach to problem solving because the actions undertaken have involved a number of issues and aspects, which not only aim to rethink and respect the environment and public space, but also to set in motion a participatory dynamic, forward-looking city, a future of dialogue and discussion to a participatory and responsible community.

    From an economic and environmental sustainability point of view, the project has led to the redevelopment of public green spaces, without building large fixed structures but rather based on the existing environmental and focusing on its potential. The playful devices were made with materials selected from among those stored in municipal nursery: all of natural origin (wood and stone) or recovery, thus ensuring a low economic and environmental sustainability impact.

    In terms of social sustainability, that process has created a community around a green space through the exchange of ideas in which all citizens had the right to participate. The community that has formed feels responsible for the care and respect of the space. In the project, participation and collaboration included more levels of relationships: the child, the educator, the family, citizenship, the immigrant population and the political, technical and administrative staff of the Municipality of Macerata.

    Based on a participatory approach

    From the earliest stages of the project, the participation of parents and educators has been essential. The people involved were invited to reflect on outdoor education and have strengthened the relationships between parents and educators. They created an important working group, which despite different knowledge and languages, had a common objective: the well-being of the child.

    One constant was the involvement of technicians, managers and directors in choosing the project for each child-care centre in the light of ideas and suggestions arising from meetings with parents and educators. Periodically educators, parents and an educational coordinator would meet to share project activities and learn about the progress. A meeting of the collective has also been extended to political and administrative figures, schools and child-care centres.

    The project is also very focused on communication, creating a network that relies on social media, the web and e-mail.

    What difference has it made?

    From a social and environmental point of view, the tangible results were the respect and attention of the citizens and public administration for the public area of the neighbourhood. The sharing and use of this place has strengthened the relationships among those who live here, and stimulated the sense of community. Sharing a path and a plan, along with direct participation have created a community that cares about the place, making it a safe space for people of different ages and cultures.

    For each child-care centre, an intervention has been chosen to be carried out within the first year of the project. To date, the project has produced very positive results, showing the need for stakeholders to think of a child's growth and development needs in new ways. There are many changes taking place in the child-care centres: a closer relationship of trust between educators and parents, a desire to use more and better outdoor facilities, leading to the introduction of new materials and the creation of experiential contexts, a path based on observation and documentation of small transformations.

    Number of requalified spaces: 5 surfaces totalling 4352,00 sq.m.

    Number of children involved: 186

    Number of families: 186 (about 558 people) Associations, organisations involved: Gus, la Meridiana, Cosmari

    Why should other European cities use it?

    The project has already been replicated in other small towns in our territory. The project has enjoyed great recognition thanks to its selection in the “Space Stories” of the international conference "Education, Earth, Nature", a conference for introducing new tools and educational strategies to increase in children the feeling of being part of an ecosystem. It also promoted respectful behaviour towards the environment and at the same time helping them to achieve well-being, skills and independence.

    In fact it is an increasingly common practice, one in which the recipients of individual interventions are the protagonists of a process designed to promote sociality, relational skills and building a shared socio-cultural identity, regardless of cultural contexts of origin. The experience was also shared in the national network S.L.U.R.P (Spazi Ludici Urbani a Responsabilità Partecipata), in which the association Les Friches has been included since 2012. The network involves local residents (and especially children) in design, implementation and management, and is based on a principle of "shared responsibility".

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