Bhubaneswar: Experts and members of the civil societies across the globe on Tuesday stressed on the critical importance of integrating adolescent voices in urban planning and development at the World Urban Forum 12 (WUF12) held at Cairo in Egypt.
Addressing a session titled ‘Cities for Adolescents – The NexGen Agenda’, they highlighted the transformative impact of giving adolescents a platform in urban planning. Adolescents bring unique perspectives that resonate with their generation’s needs, challenges, and dreams, yet their voices often remain unheard in shaping the environments where they live, study, and socialize, they added.
The session also showcased an innovative tool, a Public Space Assessment Framework that is for gathering insights from adolescents about the public spaces of cities. The Framework, developed by World Resources Institute (WRI) with support from Foundation Botnar, has been successfully implemented in the Indian cities of Bhubaneswar and Jaipur. This comprehensive framework enables adolescents to actively participate in urban planning processes through systematic assessment of public spaces.
Speaking on the occasion, Founder Chairperson of Humara Bachpan Trust Dharitri Patnaik said the public space assessment framework tools can be instrumental in empowering adolescent children, youth, local and national administrations, and global leaders alike. She also underlined the versatility of the frameworkin assessing the inclusivity, safety, accessibility, and usability of public spaces, helping to identify specific gaps and areas for improvement.
WRI has collaborated with Humara Bachpan Trust since 2022 to implement Healthy City for Adolescents (HCA-II) programme in Bhubaneswar to transform the city into a safer, more inclusive, and engaging environment for its young residents. Around 800+ adolescents have been outreached whereas 211 of them are fully capacitated in public spaces and its assessment for betterment which makes them key contributors to the development of cities as adolescent-friendly space.
Humara Bachpan is one of the frontrunners in participatory and collaborative process-based project implementation and the initiative to make Bhubaneswar a child-friendly city is a testament to the impact of involving children and adolescents in shaping their surroundings. The recognition of Bhubaneswar as India’s First Child-Friendly City highlights the success of this approach, which combines grassroots engagement with strategic urban planning.
The session, moderated by Prerna Vijaykumar Mehta, featured distinguished panellists including Joyati Das, Hyung-Tae Kim, Lavina Rathod and Dharitri Patnaik who shared their expertise on youth engagement in urban development.
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