On June 1st 2015, STT and PIN co-celebrated International Children’s Day under the slogan “City for Children”. The event was held at “Vihea Thom” (the Large Mosque) at Kilometer 09, in Village 3, Sangkat Chrang Chamres Mouy, Khan Russey Keo, Phnom Penh from 8 am to 11 am. There were over 200 people including children, their parents, representatives of the Phnom Penh Municipality, as well as local authorities who participated in the event.
The International Children’s Day (or Kid’s day) event is one of the activities of the Human Rights Based Spatial Planning Project implemented by STT and PIN funded by the EU and CZDA in village 1, village 2, village 3 and village Khor in Sangkat Chrang Chamres 1, and 2.
The main purpose of the celebration was to engage relevant people including children, to discuss, think, and share ideas about issues facing their community and put those ideas into a development plan.
The event encouraged children to think about their urban living environment by giving them the opportunity to discuss and draw what their ideal city would look like. 10 groups of children with 10 people in each group were selected in order to participate in a drawing competition. Overall, children from each group had similar ideas about their dream city which comprised of adequate housing, roads, schools, hospitals, playgrounds, and green trees. Three groups out of the10 groups were awarded as first, second and third place. One child from the group awarded first place said “I want a beautiful city with a place to play sports, a school, and good roads”. In addition about 50 other children participated in freestyle drawing and painting activities such as drawing houses, trees, cars, and flowers. All of the children who participated were happy to join the events and went home with school materials such as books, pens, pencils, erasers, and rulers.
