The Executive Assembly of Child’s Friendly City at the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM), organized a five-day training course for members of the Arab local municipalities and Arab childhood institutions, focused on the child’s friendly city initiative. Commenced on June 21st in Amman International Hotel, the course was organized in cooperation with the Arab Urban Development Institute (AUDI), the Middle East and North Africa Child Protection Initiative (MENA-CPI), and the Arab Gulf Program for the United Nations Development Fund (AGFUND).
The Assembly’s Executive Director of Social Services, Taghreed Fakhoury said the training aimed at enhancing the public awareness about the concept of child’s friendly city all over the Arab region. She noted that Amman was chosen to instruct all participants on the initiative’s basics, taking GAM as a model for being the first Arab municipal council adopting the child friendly city initiative. Fakhoury said that timing of the course was carefully set to coincide with the US-Arab Cities Forum which took place in Amman in June 2009. The forum has launched a guidebook on child’s friendly cities.
On his part, MENA-CPI Executive Director, Dr. Ibrahim Al-Turki said the training course is the first of its kind to be held in the Arab world, noting that it aims at upgrading the participants’ abilities to make their cities more children friendly.
He said that the course trained participants on the technical basics of the child’s friendly city initiative, and its guidelines. Such lessons, he said, will help in improving the child’s environment on the long run.
Al-Turki indicated that the exercises provided members of the Arab municipal councils with a plan that help in making these councils as sociable and friendly to children. The plan includes a platform for the municipal councils, as well as the civil societies, to facilitate their access of the child’s friendly city initiative. It also helps in forming qualified staffs able to apply the initiative’s procedure into action.
In the same context, Advisor of the Arab Child’s Friendly City Initiative, Mr. Othman Al-Hasan, said the initiative’s new concept was originally prepared by the United Nations Children’s Fund, and developed by AUDI, to make Arab cities more safe and open to children, especially for those who are in danger.
He said that the concept can be applicable by adopting a joint strategy that involves children in the decision making, and creating a database shows their conditions in the Arab cities. Arab municipal councils also need to establish a legal platform, and to outline a special budget, to support the related activities and programs.
Al-Turki indicated that the Child’s Friendly City Initiative is based on the World Convention of the Rights of the Child, which was declared in 1989. The convention reaffirmed that children's rights require special protection, and called for their development and education in the spirit of peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity.
President of Projects Division at the Executive Assembly, Eng. Farah Shahwan, said the assembly has contributed to the training course, by organizing a special tour for the participants at the premises of the Greater Amman Municipality.
It is worth mentioning that six Arab countries were represented in the training course, they are Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Sudan. Jordan was represented in the forum by members of the municipal councils of Fuheis, Karak and Salt.
