Rechild [Reggio Children Newsletter]

Omschrijving

The city grows like us

A city that listens to childhood recognises children as subjects of rights and creates the fundamental conditions for fuller citizenship for individuals. The concept of rights, like that of listening, is at the heart of the educational experience of the infant-toddler centres and preschools of Reggio Emilia. The project “The city grows like us. Children as protagonists of the city”, promoted by the Istituzione of Preschools and Infant-toddler Centres of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia in collaboration with Reggio Children, to which this issue of Rechild is dedicated, has sought to make the culture of childhood even more visible in a city committed to implementing the rights of children, especially in reference to the main international frameworks: the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Agenda 21, and the Habitat Agenda. In participatory education, an attitude of active listening between adults, children and the environment is indispensable for dialogue and change. The act of listening deepens the attention and sensitivity to contemporary cultural, value and political scenarios.

For a city, listening means implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child: it means improving the lives of children now for better communities today and in the future. Listening also means reading and re-reading oneself through the eyes of otherness, grasping the continuous changes and vibrations of contemporaneity that often escape an inattentive gaze and that children know how to re-propose and re-interpret. The children tell us that words alone are not enough, that maps are needed, and not necessarily just of streets, but of sounds, scents, encounters, in a geography of relationships that is the very essence of the city. We need maps, even symbolic ones, that can orient the everyday and the unusual. This project, intended to be further developed in the future, has given us a view of the city where the children expressed all their optimism and vitality: they choose not to dwell on potholes, pollution and traffic, but on wonder, revealing a rich and complex vision, a multiple identity, where imaginary places and fantastic references do not distort but strengthen, giving us a view strongly anchored in the present and open to tomorrow. A vision that, if enhanced by adults as well, can help shape new scenarios for the city. A feeling of the future that will require careful listening by all of us.

Cristian Fabbi

President of Reggio Children