As I am putting pen to paper, my heart is bleeding. It is bleeding because urban council authorities are not thinking in the best interest, survival, growth and development of children as they parcel out pieces of land to home-seekers.
Housing units, service stations, bottle stores and spaces for car sales are mushrooming everywhere within the jurisdictions of urban councils, but there are no corresponding recreational facilities for children.
It is the object of this opinion article to decry the planning of urban settlements without considering recreational facilities.
Psychologists argue that play is critical for the development of children. Pursuant to the above, play is seen also as the glue that solidifies interpersonal skills between and among children.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) — Article 31 to which our country is a signatory state — says children have the right to play and that play is considered a fundamental part of childhood, not a luxury.
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The same Article goes a step further to intimate that children have a right to recreational activities.
It says they should have opportunities to engage in enjoyable activities in safe and supportive environments.
This writer is persuaded to think that Article 31 of the UNCRC is either forgotten or hidden in plain sight to the urban council authorities because of the way they are not ensuring that every human settlement should come with recreational facilities for children.
Psychologists claim that play is critical for the development of children, it is important to appreciate that the uniqueness of play is realised in the four domains of children’s development which are social, physical, cognitive and affective.
When children play, their social quotient (SQ) grows and glows into their immediate social environment as they learn to co-exist with diverse personalities. For example, through play children learn to appreciate differences in tastes, cultures and faiths. Section 10 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, 2013, puts a premium on Zimbabweans working towards the promotion of national unity, peace and stability.
It is this writer’s submission that these virtues are not cultivated during adulthood but during childhood when children mix and mingle with one another during play.
To facilitate play for children, urban council authorities should ensure that any new suburb should have recreational facilities such as football and netball pitches, swimming pools and tennis courts, among others.
Recreational facilities are not just centres where children go to kill time. They are laboratories where children go to experiment and learn hands on.
According to Sigmund Freud — a psychoanalyst, children’s personalities are formed during the formative years, and these formative years range from 0 to six.
This understanding of the formation of personality during the formative years, as given by Freud, should be folded into the planning of human settlements by urban council authorities. For example, within the Social Services Department of either rural or urban council authorities, there should be a quasi-department on child development managed by either a social worker, community psychologist, sociologist, special needs education specialist or a child safeguarding specialist.
The social services department should see to it that the land bank of a local authority has spaces fenced off for recreational facilities for children.
What this opinion article is majoring on should not be news for local authorities because there are already regulations that speak to having these recreational facilities.
But some local authorities are burying their heads in the sand over this critical issue.
This writer would want to argue that having new suburbs without recreational facilities is very dangerous in that it creates a fertile ground for children to spend most of their time on internet (smart phones), and as this happens children are exposed to cyber-bullying and emotional harm, pornography, misinformation and harmful advice, sexual abuse and exploitation, online grooming and exploitation as predators often utilise social media, gaming platforms and chat apps to exploit children.
In the absence of recreational facilities children are often seen playing football and netball along busy and crowded roads where they risk being run over or being abducted.
As a nation, we expect to have athletes of note in various sporting fields, but how can we develop children’s different areas of gifting when local authorities approve new schools without recreational facilities for children and when the same local authorities do not even enforce by-laws that speak to recreational facilities that are in keeping with the population of given sites.
Howard Gardner, a psychologist associated with the theory of multiple intelligences argues that intelligence is not just about cognitive abilities.
He says it also involves musical intelligence, spatial intelligence, naturalistic intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence and linguistic intelligence.
He argues that when designing programmes for children, duty bearers or those with structural power should be cognisant of children’s diverse areas of gifting.
When local authorities initiate new human settlements that are crowded with no spaces for children’s play, children’s multiple intelligences go unnoticed.
It is not justifiable from a human rights perspective that food courts become the playing sites for children whose guardians would have made transactions with such food courts, because play is a human rights issue that should be enjoyed by all children.
What then happens to children of parents who cannot afford a trip to a food court?
Let the children play.
Play is an inalienable right for every child and should not be tied to a cost. Local authorities should ensure and enforce the idea of human settlements coming with spaces for the recreation of children.
- Nicholas is a Law student at the University of Zimbabwe who writes in his own capacity.