Helsinki is UNICEF’s first Nordic capital ‘Child Friendly City’
Helsinki has become the first Nordic capital to be formally recognised by children’s charity UNICEF as a Child Friendly City.
Based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, this title is awarded to municipalities which demonstrate a multi-layered commitment to improving the lives of its young residents.
Building on an initiative by the Finnish capital in 2021, Finland applied join the UNICEF Child Friendly Cities Initiative, a model which identifies the areas of children’s rights a city needs to develop and defines what the city must do to ensure that children’s rights are realised as well as possible.
Its goals for the first period of the project included:
- Employees working with children and young people, such as early childhood educators, teachers as well as employees at youth services and child welfare, receive further education on children’s rights.
- Putting in place clear guidelines to support the introduction and implementation of child impact assessments in the city’s operations.
- Gathering feedback for the municipality in a ‘child-friendly, regular and systematic manner’.
- Ensuring that Helsinki’s services aimed at children prevent bullying and promote a sense of community.
- Strengthening children and young people’s sense of safety in urban spaces by developing interaction.
UNICEF Finland says Helsinki has achieved the goal of educating personnel about children’s rights and built a child impact assessments model for preparing decisions that is firmly based on children’s rights.
It says that as regards child-friendly feedback collection, the measures have mostly been implemented as planned, while the city has also made progress in preventing bullying and promoting a sense of community.
‘We will continue to work for children’
The charity says that Helsinki has applied an innovative and child-oriented approach to enhance children and young people’s sense of safety, and these activities have included several successful pilots, although tangible results in safety cannot yet be confirmed due to the short time that has passed.
Juhana Vartianen, Mayor of Helsinki, said: “We are happy to accept the Child Friendly City recognition. We want Helsinki to be a child-friendly city where every child and young person has the right to grow and develop safely. Every child is valuable, and children’s rights apply to all children. We will continue to work for children in cooperation with UNICEF.”
Though a landmark moment for Helsinki, Finland already has 21 other recognised child-friendly cities, which highlights the priority attention given to youngsters in a country which, out of a population of around 5.5 million, includes just over a million under-18s.
It is also the first child-friendly city status to to be awarded any capital city in the Nordic region, defined as the geographic and cultural region in northern Europe and the North Atlantic which includes Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Faroe Islands.
Click here for more information on UNICEF’s Child Friendly Cities Initiative.
