Various organizations as well as representatives from the government represented Nepal at the conference. So what did Nepal present in front of other countries who are far ahead of us when it comes to being child-friendly?[break]
“Our cities are not child-friendly but we have started some work towards it,” says Dinesh Thapaliya, the Joint Secretary of Ministry of Local Development.
No area of Kathmandu is child-friendly yet. Neither the schools they study in nor their playing areas or roads or hospitals and not even their own homes built in a child-friendly manner. And this is a city that’s home to street children and children affected by war. The status of child laborers is pitiful. This is true for other cities of Nepal too.
Other countries have given special thought to areas of the city that are directly related to children. For example, hospitals.
In Kathmandu, there are hospitals and clinics on every other locality but no attention has been given to the special care of children, who make up a large number of their patients. No special measures for the children’s treatment have been incorporated into the hospitals. In a city so large, the government has only built one hospital that is totally dedicated to the service of children.
Another area that needs to be focused on being especially child-friendly is schools. “Because schools aren’t child-friendly, many students haven’t been able to go to school,” comments Anjali Pradhan, who represents the Child-Friendly Local Governance (CFLG) program at UNICEF. “There is neither the environment nor the physical infrastructure that suits children. From the desks and benches to the school buses, none are child-friendly,” she adds, giving an example of a village in Biratnagar.
The village has a majority of Muslim families. But the girls from these families didn’t go to school. The reason behind it was the school uniform. They were supposed to wear dress skirts to school. The girls weren’t willing to wear it and their parents weren’t happy about it either. The girls said that they would go to school if the school uniforms were changed from dress skirts to kurta suruwals. Hence, with the consensus of the school and the parents, the school uniform was changed and now, every girl from the village goes to school.
In cities, there are public toilets in main areas. But none of the public toilets can be used easily by children. There are huge shopping malls, apartments and movie theatres but they haven’t been designed to be child-friendly. Take for instance, the toilets in these places. They are built only for adults and children aren’t able to use them without assistance from an adult.
Also, there are millions of children in Kathmandu but there isn’t a proper playground for them. Thapaliya shares that for a city to become child-friendly, it has to have open areas where children can play freely.
Eradicating child labor is another step that should be taken to make a city child-friendly. Out of all the hotels and restaurants in Kathmandu, big or small, it is difficult to find one that hasn’t employed child labor.
However, it isn’t that absolutely no attention has been given to making cities child-friendly. Thapaliya gives Biratnagar as an example. Biratnagar also received praises in the conference for its efforts towards building a child-friendly city.
According to Thapaliya, if we work with a ‘Child First’ mentality, it isn’t difficult to turn any city into a child-friendly one. We should simply keep in mind the kind of environment a child needs from his conception till he becomes a young adult.
Considering these things, the Nepal government has introduced some plans and projects. There is a 10-year plan for child rights and development. Similarily, the CFLG National Policy 2068 BS has also been implemented. This project is now running in 31 districts, 312 VDCs and 15 municipalities. However, Kathmandu Valley doesn’t fall under this project area.
Countries like Japan, Thailand and Philippines have shown good progress in building child-friendly cities. In fact, Philippines is exemplary for the whole world in this regard. Pradhan of UNICEF shares that she and a team had visited Philippines to know more about creating child-friendly cities and had witnessed how schools, streets, parks as well as the whole city had a very child-friendly environment.
We have a lot to learn from Philippines when it comes to building child-friendly cities.
Related story
Must-listen health and fitness podcasts
_20240311121839.jpg)
