How Crazy Can it Be? An Assessment, Three Years Later, of Outcomes from a Participatory Project with Children in Johannesburg

Abstract

This paper provides a follow-up, three years later, to a promising initiative by the city of Johannesburg. In 2000, the local authority invited children in four low-income neighborhoods to identify local concerns and to make recommendations, as a contribution to the city's planning process.

The follow-up investigation examined how the city had used the children's neighborhood assessments and found that there had been no response at all. Drawing on interviews with all key players, the paper presents an account of what happened and what went wrong.

It discusses the challenges inherent in participatory efforts of this kind, and makes recommendations for future initiatives, both for local authorities and for organisations supporting children's active involvement in local planning.

An article"We Know Something Someone Doesn’t Know..." Children Speak Out on Local Conditions in Johannesburg [PDF] that summarizes the four-site study within the process to transform Greater Johannesburg into a child-friendly city is also available. The article presents the voices of 10- through 14-year olds in four diverse but representative areas of the city as they describe their use of their local environments, the problems they face, and their own priorities for making Johannesburg a better city in which to grow up. Based on the children’s experiences, a number of programme and policy responses are recommended, many of which will be relevant to other cities as well.