The playground at Taitung Forest Park in the eastern county of the same name incorporates bird-shaped elements into climbing structures. (Courtesy of PPFCC)
Child-centric playground transformations are underway around the country.
As the Ministry of Culture plans the construction of the National Children’s Future Museum, set to open in 2030 in New Taipei City’s populous Banqiao District, the preparatory office is canvassing children around the country to better incorporate their views and wishes during the design process. The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is central to the brief of the first national-level facility catering to minors, and the committee seeks to give input from both youth and experts due weight. To this end, the preparatory committee includes specialists in children’s education and psychology as well as representatives from the Taipei City-based advocacy group Taiwan Parks and Playgrounds for Children by Children (PPFCC).
PPFCC members were invited to advise the committee in 2023 on the strength of their activism promoting children’s right to freedom of expression. Over the past decade the group has participated in playground renovation and construction projects for nearly 500 parks throughout the country, primarily in the special municipalities of Taipei, New Taipei and Taoyuan in the north, Tainan and Kaohsiung in the south, and central Taiwan’s Taichung. “Our core mission is to listen to children and convey what they want,” PPFCC President Jen Wang (王秀娟) said.
Slides at the Hakka Lion Playground in the northern county of Hsinchu incorporate cultural elements significant to the surrounding community. (Courtesy Of PPFCC)
Stimulating Experience
The PPFCC traces its origins to 2015, when local governments around the country removed community playground equipment like terrazzo slides over alleged safety concerns and replaced them with prefabricated plastic items in bright primary colors. Wang describes these cookie-cutter sets as the “four lows” for their low cost and quality, as well as their limited appropriateness for children above a certain age and height. Parents began sharing their views and connecting with each other on social media before staging a protest in front of Taipei City Hall in November 2015.
The parents came from many different backgrounds, including architecture, information technology, law, occupational therapy, psychology and social work. They put their varied expertise to work understanding not only the standards for playground equipment and the rationale for removal, but also the experiences of the children using it. Wang recalled the four-year-old son of one member asking why the adults had taken away the exciting things and left boring ones in their place. In Wang’s view, the question from such a young child threw the problem into sharp relief: A child’s right to engage in age-appropriate play and recreational activities, which is enshrined in the CRC, had been completely overlooked.
In 2014 Taiwan enacted the Implementation Act of the CRC to show the government’s commitment to refining extant domestic law relating to the convention’s main principles of nondiscrimination, the best interests of the child, respect for the views of the child, and the child’s right to life, survival and development. These concerns are also at the heart of the PPFCC’s work. “The government is keen to address the national security issue of Taiwan’s low birthrate,” Secretary General Ruby Pan (潘汝璧) said. “It’s also crucial to ensure children grow joyfully in a healthy, stimulating environment.” Pan pointed out that the group, formally established in 2017, facilitates communication with the public sector in a reliable and professional way.
Children join in the fun at playground design workshops in northern Taiwan. (Courtesy of PPFCC)
Listening Time
Pan, Wang and other group members sought out experts to expand their knowledge of safety regulations, especially the national standards for industrial products, and often stayed up late analyzing playground blueprints provided by local authorities like Taipei City Government’s Parks and Street Lights Office. “Civil servants are great at managing streets, walkways and greenery, but their diligent work produced ‘four low’ playgrounds because their expertise doesn’t include children’s psychology, development and education,” Pan said. She added that the results tended to please adults’ sensibilities without taking into account children’s needs and interests.
The PPFCC took steps to help Taipei’s government offices remedy oversights in the public hearing stage. “They’re supposed to welcome and incorporate opinions from parents and children,” Pan said, explaining that workday meetings made it hard for families to attend. “Fortunately, government employees were quick to adjust and arrange the events on weekends and weeknights,” she added. Earlier this year public hearings and workshops for three park construction projects in northern Taipei’s Beitou District were all held on Saturdays and Sundays. “We’re so glad to see a government-led system demonstrate the flexibility and capacity to accept new ideas and constructive suggestions from the civil sector,” Pan said.
An artificial hill presents multiple avenues for ascent and descent, allowing children to direct their play at Taipei’s Rongxing Garden Park. (Courtesy of PPFCC)
In December 2016 Rongxing Garden Park in Taipei’s Zhongshan District completed renovation. Its playground was a triumph for the PPFCC, as the organization had helped designers incorporate children’s ideas from the beginning of the design period. An artificial hill presents multiple options for ascent and descent including slides and a climbing rope, while classic equipment such as sandboxes and monkey bars provide additional space for active, creative play. Eight similar projects were completed in the capital in 2017, and the following year saw the group’s first result in New Taipei at Sanxia District’s Longxue Park. The PPFCC has continued to collaborate with local governments, leading to an increase in park playgrounds around the country with child- and expert-approved features ranging from merry-go-rounds and multiperson swings to ground coverings of wood chips and other natural materials. “We want to enable adventure games and interaction with nature and make everyone feel welcome: little kids, older children, teenagers and even adults,” Wang said.
A street closure in the southern city of Kaohsiung provides children with space for free play. (Courtesy of PPFCC)
Home and Away
Toward the end of 2018 the PPFCC began to expand the focus of its campaign for children’s freedom to play by exploring street closures. “Road-use applications are typically approved for festivals and wedding parties,” Wang explained. “Providing space for children to play was not considered as a possible legitimate use of roads.” After a few months of concerted hard work, the first street closure for children’s recreation took place at the plaza in front of Taipei City Hall in March 2019.
The event and others that followed were inspired by overseas experiences from organizations like London Play and Tokyo Play, with which the PPFCC has built strong connections. The PPFCC is also a member of the International Play Association, founded in 1961 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The association’s most recent triennial world conference took place in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2023, and the next edition is planned in Christchurch, New Zealand. “International exchanges at such conventions keep new ideas circulating,” Wang said. “Insights from fellow activists all over the world encourage us to look at the health-giving aspects of play and consider how best to facilitate it at both the policy and practical levels.”
Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw