<p><p>Lehtikunnas, Katri Johanna (2009). <em>Pelotas</em><em> as seen through the eyes of its street children. An empirical investigation of the child-friendliness of a midsize Brazilian city.</em> Human Geography, advanced level, master thesis for master exam in Human Geography, 30 ECTS credits.</p><p>Supervisor: Maria Nordström</p><p>Language: English</p><p> </p><p>The aim of this study was to understand the lives of the street children in Pelotas in Southern Brazil. Utilizing multi-method approach I have outlined normal days of these children. Observation, semi-structure interviews individually and in focus groups and walking tours with twelve street children provided vast knowledge about the geographies of their activities and locational choices. This study illustrates the picture the street children have of their city. The conceptual framework of this study is based on the concepts of child-friendly cities and attachment to place. The results analyzed by using these concepts reveal the extremely challenging situation of street children in the margin of society. Settings for a good and balanced life may be there, but actualization of those settings is trivial. Abuse, violence, drugs, discrimination and misunderstanding frame their everyday life. Possibilities to live a normal life are minimal. In this light child-friendliness of Pelotas is evaluated. Based on the results, I claim that these concepts cannot be directly applied to street children. To be able to improve the livelihoods of these children a key tool is cooperation with them. The projects need to be designed and planned <em>with</em> them, not <em>for</em> them. Collaboration between the children and the mainstream society is needed to get sustainable results.</p></p>

Lehtikunnas, Katri Johanna (2009). Pelotas as seen through the eyes of its street children. An empirical investigation of the child-friendliness of a midsize Brazilian city. Human Geography, advanced level, master thesis for master exam in Human Geography, 30 ECTS credits. Supervisor: Maria Nordström Language: English   The aim of this study was to understand the lives of the street children in Pelotas in Southern Brazil. Utilizing multi-method approach I have outlined normal days of these children. Observation, semi-structure interviews individually and in focus groups and walking tours with twelve street children provided vast knowledge about the geographies of their activities and locational choices. This study illustrates the picture the street children have of their city. The conceptual framework of this study is based on the concepts of child-friendly cities and attachment to place. The results analyzed by using these concepts reveal the extremely challenging situation of street children in the margin of society. Settings for a good and balanced life may be there, but actualization of those settings is trivial. Abuse, violence, drugs, discrimination and misunderstanding frame their everyday life. Possibilities to live a normal life are minimal. In this light child-friendliness of Pelotas is evaluated. Based on the results, I claim that these concepts cannot be directly applied to street children. To be able to improve the livelihoods of these children a key tool is cooperation with them. The projects need to be designed and planned with them, not for them. Collaboration between the children and the mainstream society is needed to get sustainable results.

A city user that is often neglected in these fast urban transitions is the children. Even if Swedish planning offices aim to increase the focus on children, they are hindered by a lack of knowledge, leading to adult-created places not rooted in children's actual needs. Places actually important to children are rarely justified and children are forced into specific settings that are small islands in an otherwise adult-oriented world. To be able to build a child-friendly city, planners need first to understand children’s sense of place. Nonetheless, most research done on the topic is reviewing sense of place as generated between adults and their environment, neglecting sense of place as a phenomenon also between environment and child. The lack of insight into children’s sense of place and the tangible absence of justification for children’s places in urban planning highlights the need for further research. From a phenomenological critical realism approach, the aim of this study was to contribute to the theoretical discussion of sense of place from the perspective of children and to give guidance to the planning practice. Through interviews and observations with children between 3-7 years old living in two different neighbourhoods, the result implied that children develop a sense of place through aspects like physical setting, community, memories, knowledge and through meaningful functions created with fantasy. Furthermore, places important to children seem to often be places where they were allowed to experience independently without being overprotected by parents. Common to the valued places was also that they offered physical, social as well as psychological challenges. They are often part of open and flexible spaces allowing children to use their fantasy, imagination and to build their own places. The guidance to the planning practice was divided into five guiding points; Rethink, Involve &amp; Include, Make accessible, Accept, and Create.

Importance of seeing and implementing children’s needs in the urban public realm is widely discussed among urban researchers in recent years. It is becoming more challenging, as nowadays there are more than one billion children growing up in cities,which is more than ever before. In this research, I discuss a specific context of a modernist area, Sykhiv, which represents the most widespread type of residential area in Ukraine. The research aims to understand the quality of Sykhiv’s neighborhoods for children and to understand the different perspectives of experts and parents onchild-friendliness in the public realm of Sykhiv. The first research question is dedicatedto parents’ perspectives and children’s spatial practices, the second part is dedicated toexpert views on existing policies, practices, narratives towards child-friendly environment in Sykhiv. The third question represents the synthesis of two previous and reflects on the rethinking of public spaces in Sykhiv in terms of child-friendliness. Three key theories that help to frame this study are: holistic theory on Environmentalchild-friendliness helps to envision a complexity of a phenomenon of child-friendlinessof the environment, critical study on reconceptualizing the playground, which reflects onan extension of the focus of researching a play in the physical environment, andaffordance theory, which bridges the physical environment and human behavior. Theresults showed that Sykhiv has lots of features of a child-friendly environment, noticedboth by experts and parents, however, play infrastructure has numerous disadvantages.The holistic strategy, effective cooperation of all actors (public authorities, civic activists,parents and children, urban planners), awareness and knowledge are lacking in order tocontribute to a child-friendly environment, or at least to prevent negative tendencies tointensity of traffic, shortage of greenery, densening residential areas, etc. Extended safegreen spaces are more likely to perform children’s needs in a public realm, thanplaygrounds that are very frequent but of poor quality in Sykhiv.