I have a lovely impish angel as my friend, my closest buddy. Her name is Neer and she is all of five.
Weekends are lovely to spend time at our home in the hills, she is out planting and pruning, swimming and running . But my challenge lies in doing meaningful yet easy entertaining children activities in the city life.
Sunday outings for the urban privileged children are typically the malls, that are expensive with an overload of synthetic and unoriginal play areas and eating out. Private clubs with sports activities and paid classes for theater, music and other activities exists, but it is far from being enough.
For example a city like Mumbai, hosts about two dozen parks and innumerable gardens but at best they remain lawned spaces, bereft of educational entertainment for children. With so many design and educational institutions it is surprising that no thought seems to be given in this crucial and nation building aspect.
Though Mumbai has had some exceptional spaces for children but they need to be reassessed, evaluated and upgraded. The Nehru Science center, the Taraporewala Fish Aquarium, and the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan and Zoo in Byculla.
For example The Byculla Zoo needs a revaluation as the entire concept of caging animals in a Zoo is cruel and outdated. It would make complete sense to transfer the animals to the lovely Aarey urban forest and turn the existing Byculla Zoo, which is rich in the species of fabulous trees into a Museum of trees.
Conducting guided tours for the awareness of the botanical aspects would be enriching for young and adults alike. In one of my PIL I had mentioned to consider this.
In a scenario where resources are limited and impact and reach needs to be multi fold, gardens and parks can be a haven if we looked into it for strengthening and nurturing our young population. Policy decisions that help create well thought out programs is crucial and the need for immediate attention, cannot be emphasized enough.
As a civic amenity the parks and gardens exists, but there isn’t much thought given to design them for our young population, which at 400 million is the world’s largest child population, 40% of India’s population
is below the age of 18 years.
Needless to say that our unprivileged children suffer the most.
One of the most inspiring case study in recent times, is that of Columbia’s Medellin, it’s transformation into a ‘City for Life’, must rank as the most remarkable urban redemption project in modern history. Once the most violent city in the world, Medellín was recognized in 2013 as the most innovative city in the world by the Wall Street Journal and the Urban Land institute.
Sergio Fajardo, a journalist turned mathematician turned politician, the mayor
Initiated the change that has followed since. A third of the city’s budget goes to education, over the past 10 years, Medellin built 120 schools and nine of the signature library parks.
The Social urbanism experiment in Medellin, has inspired the province of Antioquia to set up a network of 80 educational parks.
Lets talk of Goa, it’s already on the world tourist map, as per the information as on April 2022, more than 3.0 million tourists, including 0.5 million foreign tourists, visit Goa every year and the number is growing.
If we take cue and Imagine thematic parks, each inspired by the different crafts of India and infuse them with innovation, technology inspired by traditional toys, games, fables and turn them into educational tools, toys and games, this would be a stellar example for all other states in India, to follow suit.
This can easily be created through running design competitions by Art, Design, technology & architecture institutes.
If design, craft and engineering institutes are encouraged to tackle the paucity that exists for children’s educational play area, we would have looked into the needs of a young population that is ignored so shamelessly.
With changing times it’s important to change the pedagogy and methodology for education. Experiential learning is the road ahead. We need to look at our education systems and tools, which need innovation, design but most importantly attention and care.
So on the Childrens Day, remembering what Chacha Nehru said, “Children are like buds in a garden and should be carefully and lovingly nurtured, as they are the future of the nation and the citizens of tomorrow. Only through right education can a better order of society be built up.”
MEANDERINGS BY MOTLA
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(Sonal Motla, curator Kala Ghoda 2020 with development and art as a theme and is currently working towards the issues on education on art, craft and design with a few educational institutions)
