YOUR FORUM FOR PLAY, SPORTS UND LEISURE AREAS
For many years now, one of the top priorities of FEPI has been to promote physical activity and to raise awareness of the importance of play for general fitness and health of children and youth.
Over the years, FEPI has made many valuable contributions to this end and the federation continues to do so today. An example could be FEPI’s recent contribution paper to the Practical Guidelines on the Promotion of Children’s Physcial Activities (which are avaiable here http://www.citiesforsports.eu/fileadmin/images/files/Guidelines.pdf), which was submitted in December 2010. In the contribution paper, FEPI highlighted the importance of combining the theoretical knowledge with scientific analyses on children’s physical activities so as to provide a solid background for the arguments put forward in the Guidelines. It also emphasized the need for uniform EU recommendations and binding directives regarding the location, the size, the quality of playgrounds and the harmonisation of regulations on the space allocating for playgrounds and sports areas in all EU Member States.
The final version of the Guidelines, which was published this year, was created as a result of the partnership between five European cities -Athens, Copenhagen, Innsbruck, Rotterdam and Sttutgard, FEPI and other organisations such as the WHO Europe or the University of Zurich. The overall objective of the Guidelines is to increase physcial activity amongs children and youth and raising the profile of play among young generations, by providing recommendations for European municipalities on children’s physcial activity promotion programmes. The Guidelines are designed to help the city administrations and institutions from sectors such as health, youth, sport and education in establishing a culture of physical acivity as an area of policy-making. The themes of the Guidelines are comprehensive and range from politics through urban and transport planning, networks and knowledge management. For instance, in the field of urban and transport planning they stress the importance of creating an environment that is conducive to children’s activities by introducing measures aimed at reducing traffic and promoting cycling and walking as a means of transport or creating more communal open spaces in local neighborhoods with attractive playgrounds. In the field of education they highlight the importance of both indoor and outdoor exercise spaces and play areas in education institutions such as day care, kindergartens and schools as well as the need to include physical activity in teacher training. In the areas of intra-administrative and intra-urban networks, they call for a greater cooperation and exchange of available knowledge and information between not only different municipalities but also all departments and areas in which the encouragement of the physical activity play a role, including youth welfare offices, health departments, sport departments, local education authority, as well as the town planning office in developing strategies and measures. In conclusion, the Practical Guidelines address the fact that children have specific rights and needs and that when providing facilities and services the views of children should be incorporated and considered.
After receiving a funding from the European Commission and a year-long development process, the Guidelines will now be shared with European municipalities not yet affiliated with the project with the ultimate aim of bringing them on board. FEPI is actively engaged in this process and contributes by encouraging various cities to join the project. The first meeting with potential new partner will take place during the next FEPI General Assembly held in Barcelona on 29th of March 2011. High-ranked officials from the Barcelona municipality have kindly accepted FEPI’s invitation and will participate in the meeting so as to explore possible cooperation in the field of physical activity promotion.
FEPI hopes that through this initiative of trying to establish a set of practical guidelines and promoting them across European municipalities, it will contribute to creating increasingly child friendly environment within cities, where every child has the possibility to engage in active and creative play.
