child's play...

invisible...
Originally uploaded by antje b.

I just read this article in the Guardian about findings regarding the loss of physical strength in 10-year-olds, with one in ten in 2008 unable or unwilling to hold his own body weight hanging from a bar, when in 1998 it had been one in 20. With at the same time a comparable body mass index, indicating that the children, for the same weight, are carrying less muscle and instead more fat around with them.

Until I was 9 years old, we lived in a rented flat in one of 3 low-rise blocks built from yellow brick in the 1930ies. They hemmed in a huge courtyard with a little fenced-in garden with some fruit trees, a broken and disused concrete paddling pool that I only ever saw water in after the rain, some wild patch of grass and shrubs and two rows of garages in the centre, surrounded by a footpath, and a square of lawn lined by hedges for every back entrance of the buildings with room to hang the washing... and for children to play.

There was no official playground in that yard but there were trees and a little hill at the far end to climb, catch and hide and seek to play, and the footpath around the centre island of the courtyard served as a bicycle track for the children who knew how to ride a bike already. I remember I was out there every day, except when it was raining.

I also went to a creche from 6 months (when my mum's maternity leave was over), and then from age 3 to kindergarten. Both of them equipped with fantastic playgrounds, and there, too, we would have at least a couple of hours a day playing outside, weather permitting.

When we moved to the Baltic Sea, the new sprawling estate there had several playgrounds to make sure children didn't have to go too far from home to play. Again, we were out pretty much every day. Apart from that, I had ballet classes and gymnastics training to keep me moving by then.

Change of scene: In 1993 I lived in Lyham Road right behind Brixton prison, renting a room from an elderly lady whose son and daughter-in-law with their two little boys lived just next door. The boys were out playing a lot, too, but only in the narrow and bare strip of a garden behind their council house, and only with each other. On his first day in school, the older boy was taken home after one hour because he was crying the whole time. Suddenly he was surrounded by several children his own age and not his little brother, and he couldn't cope!

The nearest playground in that street was probably a kilometer and definitely at least one very busy road away. Not a way I would like my children to take routinely just to get to play. I like the playgrounds in London's parks, but the nearest one to where I currently live is a 15 minute walk away. Again, although there is less traffic here, it is not a distance I'd be comfortable letting under 10-year-olds walk by themselves. So a parent always has to go along, and has to have the time to, instead of being able to shout down from the window that it's dinner time.

It is a great shame that there are so few playgrounds around in the UK, and it's a great shame that there are so many reasons to fear for your children's safety when they are out and about by themselves. And now we see it doesn't just affect children's social skills, it makes them physically weaker, too.

Amnesty! When they are all free

another of my blogposts for the Frontline Club

Kate Townsend, executive producer for BBC Four's international documentary strand Storyville, introduced the film about the 50 year long story of Amnesty International.

The opening sequence set the scene with statements about Amnesty as the right place for people who “liked to cause mischief and put it to good use”, that Amnesty was the “McDonald’s of human rights” to Jack Straw’s: “If people do nothing, nothing will happen.” The film goes on to tell the story of not so much an organisation, but a movement, that started 50 years ago and is still going strong, despite questions about its objectives and the way it goes about achieving them.

After the screening James Rogan, director of the film, Claudio Cordone, Senior Director of Research and Regional Programs for Amnesty International, Patricia Feeney, former Amnesty researcher for Argentina, and Dr. Stephen Hopgood, Reader in International Relations at SOAS and Amnesty biographer, answered questions about the film and its subject.

Claudio Cordone classed it as the best documentary about the organisation so far, acknowledging that 50 years was a long time to condense into just over one hour, and that the issues chosen were necessarily limited but still representative of Amnesty’s work, successes and difficulties.

With its widening remit from initially purely pressing for the release of prisoners of conscience to the current work on broader human rights, like ending poverty, violence against women, and homophobia, tensions have appeared between the broad base of the membership, which was and remains in the European and North American middle class, people with enough time and ressources to care about issues other than their own, and the specific needs of those fighting conditions in their own countries. The campaign against homophobia in Uganda was cited as an example where Amnesty as a Western NGO might not be as helpful as it would like to be due to the perception there of homosexuality as an essentially Western evil.

A long-time worker for Amnesty in the audience defended the organisation against the “McDonald’s of human rights” label, pointing out that Amnesty had always worked by asking those affected what kind of help they needed instead of presenting a “set menu” of options that did not necessarily fit the purpose of those whom they tried to help.

Other questions probed changes Amnesty International made after being criticised for their hesitant response to Rwanda, the rift at times between its principles and practice, as in the controversial pay-off of its General Secretary Irine Khan at a time when the organisation was fighting poverty elsewhere, as well as Amnesty’s roll in the Arab Spring.

James Rogan summarised it well when he said that in initial talks about the documentary the reaction had been critical with questions raised about whether Amnesty had lost its way. However, there was a bigger message: Amnesty International as a movement is about people with the luxury of being free to protest, and using that freedom on behalf of those who don’t have it. As a principle, there is only so much anyone could find fault with that.