"Help us replace the slide": Children's plea in Barcelona's budget

BarcelonaIt's just a few minutes past five in the afternoon and the auditorium at the Gràcia district headquarters is packed to the rafters. While they wait for the session to begin, the debate among those present is intense. It might seem like the prelude to any ordinary district council meeting if it weren't for the fact that those facing proposals this time are between 8 and 14 years old. Dozens of children will spend nearly an hour defending and discussing which projects they want to allocate a portion of the €30 million at stake in the second edition of Barcelona City Council's participatory budget.

For the first time, the council has decided to give children a say in this process. Of the 25 projects from each district that will go to the final vote—voting is open until this Wednesday to choose which initiatives make it through the process—two will have been directly chosen by children. They will have done so in sessions like the one this past Thursday in Gràcia. Children's Agoras, where they can defend the projects they find most interesting and try to convince other children to vote for them.

The first to speak are a group of school children asking the audience for support in improving their playground. "Help us replace the slide," one of them summarizes, explaining that the current one is old and even has splinters. They also want to expand the school garden and install pergolas in the playground to provide more shade so they don't get so hot in the summer.

The proposals calling for improvements in schools—more shade, a new playground, a new music room—are the most common at the Children's Agoras held in each district. But there are more. Some initiatives require new playgrounds or improvements to existing ones. Others propose investing in sports centers. Many have a direct impact on the school environment.

This is the case, for example, with the one advocated by the students of the Universo School, who are demanding a new, safer pedestrian crossing on Bailèn Street. Or the children of the Escola Jujol, who complain that cars sometimes pass "too fast" by the school gates and ask that traffic be stopped punctually during student arrival and departure times.

The final vote

Participatory budgets also serve to address the lack of youth facilities that often plagues the city. In the Eixample district, for example, youth organizations in the Sagrada Família neighborhood have joined forces to promote a proposal to create a Self-Managed Youth Center that guarantees a stable and safe meeting place for young people, offering leisure, training, and popular culture activities.

The 20 winning projects from the district Children's Agoras held these past few days will advance to the next phase, along with the 230 that emerge from the district prioritization phase. The list will be made public on March 20th. From then on, a project specification phase will begin, in which municipal technicians will work alongside the proponents of the proposals to fine-tune them before the final vote opens in May.

In this decisive vote, however, children between 8 and 14 years old will no longer be able to participate, and will have to cross their fingers that the proposals emerging from their Children's Agoras are among the most voted and become part of the projects that will ultimately be carried out in the city.