It's starting off well.....

I know, I cheated a little (7 hours too early) but I do feel that 2010 is really going to gain momentum with regards to children and nature. Here's an exciting project, for starters...

Camilla Rockwell is currently working on a new documentary called "Mother Nature's Child". It explores how time spent in nature influences child health and development. Powerful stuff, check out the trailer.

It's Getting Hot In Here

This is a blog by our next generation of leaders, "a collection of voices from the student and youth leaders of the global movement to stop global warming". Love it.

Happy New Year

Here's hoping 2010 will be a good year for us all, but especially to children, nature and our sense of play.

Better late than never.

In leu of the Copenhagen Climate Conferences, although a little after the fact.....here's a website called Children in a changing climate, about "securing children and young people a voice in preventing and adapting to climate change - from their communities to the UN".

Check out the latest news side bar with exciting articles about what went on at the conference, my favourite heading being "Children set homework for adults at COP15 climate conference". Nice.

Another gap in my education

Thomas Berry..... I'd never heard of him until today. I know, some days I feel like I've been living in a cave. It's hard to summarize his career in one sentence, particularly since I am just learning about him myself.

I just read this essay he wrote in December 1993, called The Meadow Across the Creek.

My favourite part:

"We have indeed become strange beings so completely are we at odds with the planet that brought us into being. We dedicate enormous talent and knowledge and research to developing a human order disengaged from and even predatory on the very sources whence we came and upon which we depend at every moment of our existence. We initiate our children into an economic order based on exploitation of the natural life systems of the planet. To achieve this perspective we must first make them autistic in their relation with the natural world about them. This disconnection occurs quite simply since we ourselves have become insensitive toward the natural world and do not realize just what we are doing. Yet, if we observe our children closely in their early years and see how they are instinctively attracted to the experiences of the natural world about them, we will see how disorientated they become in the mechanistic and even toxic environment that we provide for them."

About time too.

The headline reads Congress Considers Federal Funding for City Parks. The article, posted on the Children and Nature website, says legislation has been introduced in Congress that would provide federal funding for urban parks and recreation for the first time in eight years....

EIGHT YEARS..... bleak time or we could even call them Dark Ages (definition from wikipedia: The Dark Ages is a term referring to the perceived period of cultural decline or societal collpase). Without places where, as the article states "children can play outdoors, get involved in sports and experience nature", these are and have been dark times indeed.

So, let's see some change.

Child Friendly Cities

I actually practiced what I preached (for a change... ha), by checking out the IPA website, as I had suggested on my previous post and found this link to the website, Child Friendly Cities, a part of Unicef.

What is a child friendly city? I asked the same question......

In a nutshell, or the full version to be found here....

- It is a city, or more generally a system of local governance, committed to fulfilling children's rights, including their right to:

• Influence decisions about their city
• Express their opinion on the city they want
• Participate in family, community and social life
• Receive basic services such as health care and education
• Drink safe water and have access to proper sanitation
• Be protected from exploitation, violence and abuse
• Walk safely in the streets on their own
• Meet friends and play
• Have green spaces for plants and animals
• Live in an unpolluted environment
• Participate in cultural and social events
• Be an equal citizen of their city with access to every service, regardless of ethnic origin, religion, income, gender or disability

I read this and thought how lucky my kids are just to be in a city/country where much of this is taken for granted. It's hard to imagine it otherwise. But, as necessity is the mother of invention, this organization wouldn't exist but for a need...... Sad.

(photo via child friendly cities)