Child Friendly Spaces

Yesterday was a day of celebrations: the new Child Friendly Space (CFS) in one of the communities was to be opened! This CFS is a community centre where children and youth are welcome to play and join in with child-friendly recreational activities. In the communities where these centers have been built, there used to be no place for children to safely play, do sports and engage with other children in the community. With this new CFS there will be more opportunities for the children and young people to do so, and it will be run by local community workers from the same area. This CFS also provides a base for awareness raising campaigns for the communities, on for example child rights and protection issues. Looking at the amount of children and young people who showed up for the ‘grand opening’, there is surely an interest! The community workers had a hard time trying to keep the plentiful children and youth in place; they were so eager to see the special puppet show, the dance and singing performance and the several speeches of children and adults! When the especially invited singer (-with keyboard-) started his first tunes, everyone jumped up and danced so enthusiastically that the sandy dance area was soon covered in dust. But dust or no dust, it didn’t stand in the way of celebrating this special milestone and the start off of the first Child Friendly Space in their community!