Kendari, The Child-Friendly City
One of the implementation of Child-Friendly City programme in Kendari.
KENDARI is known as the capital city of South East Sulawesi. For the past nine years, Kendari has been receiving several awards for its achievements, including the Piala Adipura Award for city with the best waste management (from 2009 until present); Swasti Saba Padapa (2011) and Swasti Saba Wiwerda (2013), both in recognition of healthy city. In these same years, Kendari city also won a Child Friendly City Award, given upon its various achievements and assessed by similar indicators as for both Adipura and Swasti Saba. Child-Friendly City is a concept whereby an integrated system is implemented to engage all related stakeholders including the government, private sector, academicians and communities, with a concrete commitment and resources under
one policy, programme, and activity to ensure that child protection is well-implemented as a whole and sustainable.
Kendari City’s determination to implement the Child-Friendly City concept is driven by three developments. First, the city has seen a child population growth of 3.09% per year within a short period of time. Second, the city has been awarded the Healthy City. Third, this particular Healthy City award has then served as a basis for liveable city policy for every citizen, including children. Various steps have taken especially to facilitate people’s well-being and education. The former area was promoted through the establisment of children public rooms to play and study at 12 community health centers. In education, inclusive and childfriendly schools at all levels, from elementary until high school, have been established. These schools have dual identities: Healthy School and City-Friendly School. They are identified by separated toilets for boys and girls with proper ratio numbers; no plants considered hazardous such as cactus planted around school parks; fences surrounding the school areas are equipped with the 3R facilities (reduce-reuserecycle), school canteen availability becomes part of the required school facility as it is a place where students obtain their foods and drinks. With these improvements, students are more educated on environment issues and schools gains Adiwiyata, an award for schools that promote enviroment awareness. In implementing the Child-Friendly City Concept, various Government offices at local levels such as the Local Health Office, Local Planned Family Office, Local Archive Office, Local Education and Enviroment Office and Local Police Office are involved. It also requires support from private sector and civil society. Kendari City, together with local offices and civil society organisation (CSOs) have partnered up on children and women issues. For instance, one of CSOs called Rumpun Perempuan Sultra (RPS) has set up a call center for domestic violence and abused victims. They also provide forums for children representatives to conduct both formal (once a month) and informal consultations with local govnerments. The impacts have been significant as various policies are delivered from the integrated services concern children and women violence victims, local action plan for human trafficking as well as children justice system. Other partners include financial institutions such as the Central Bank of Indonesia, Bank Rakyat Indonesia, and Bank Sultra. Together with local private company, Sinar Galesong, and state-owned entreprise Kimia Farma, children play parks were developed in some areas in the city, including at the Street Market Central area.
From SDGs perspective, Kendari City has successfully implemented at least five direct goals: Goal 3 for Good Health and Well Being; Goal 4 for Quality Education; Goal 11 for Sustainable Cities and Communities; Goal 16 for Peace, Justice and Strong Institution; and Goal 17 for Partnership.