Voices of the Children Phase II – Kwai Fong
Hong Kong Shing Kung Hui Lady MacLehose Centre (HKSKH), our local partner, has launched the “Voices of Children” Kwai Fong group in their WeConnect Centre. It aims at exploring the present conditions, issues and solutions to improve the community facilities in Kwai Fong. Children participants then converted their understandings to drawings and models, consolidated their opinions through dialogues with professional collaborators and aspired to actualise children voices in the community.
Stage 1 – Recruitment
Children recruitment started in the midst of severe COVID-19 pandemics. In order to align with the precaution measures and balance the progress of children recruitment, not only did HKSKH set up booths in public space in Kwai Fong to recruit children, but also organised a series of online activities for children who came from the family they served—“Zoom to Travel around the World”, “Community Quiz Competition”, etc. These activities offered opportunities to children to travel around the world to “visit” the playground facilities at different places and understand the issues in their community without leaving home under the pandemic.
Stage 2 – Children Community Concern Group –Junior Community Officers
Children participants were named “Kwai Fong Junior Community Officers”. They were empowered as important individuals and encouraged to care about their community. Since the Concern Group was under the volatility of COVID-19 at the early stage, face-to-face and online workshops were both arranged to empower the Junior Community Officers to ideate the blueprints of their ideal playgrounds. Finally, eight children aged 7-10 were recruited.
Stage 3 – Child-led Issue Identification
Through activities such as the “Kwai Chung Trail” ,“District Councillors and Me” and ”Community Spatial Tour” which made use of a Trail Journal and an online “touring” workshop, the Kwai Fong Junior Community Officers got to know different areas and identified the problems in their community. Children also worked with City Planners to fabricate their ideal community with Lego blocks according to urban planning principles and they were invited to exchange views with their district councillors on the ideal elements of a playground.
Stage 4 – Child-led Advocacy to Public
As the pandemic had begun to recede, children were able to explore and provide solutions to improve their community. Through various tools such as community design worksheets and legos, children were able to learn about the community’s needs and raise suggestions. These suggestions earned city planners’ comments as enlightenment and showed in the event named Design for Ideal Community Exhibition cum Press Launch. Many guests and community stakeholders joined the event and actively gave opinions about children’s community design.
Stage 5 – Policy Advocacy to Government
The Junior Community Officers have been closely monitoring the facilities and usage of the parks in the Shek Yam Road area as they would like to urge the government to renovate the outdated park facilities. Through the coordination of the District Council member, the Junior Community Officers successfully met with officers from the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) and provided suggestions on incorporating children’s play equipment at Shek Yam Road Rest Garden No. 3. They were delighted to learn that LCSD had adopted their ideas and expanded the play area for children, as well as adding swings and seesaws during the park renovation process.
