Youth and Children in the Participatory Process

Recognizing, listening to, and valuing those on the ground

The Riponne-Tunnel area affects a large number of people from all walks of life. The initiative seeks to highlight the diversity and complexity of the stakeholders and visions for these public spaces by bringing to light and comparing everyone’s perspectives. To achieve this, a methodology incorporating varied approaches tailored to different audiences has been implemented to develop a thorough understanding of how these spaces are used and their context.

It became clear that it was important to reach out to young people and children. Indeed, these specific groups will always be present in public spaces and within the Riponne Tunnel area. It is therefore important to meet their expectations—not only to help the children of tomorrow feel more at home in these spaces but also to raise awareness among the adult citizens they will become. Furthermore, involving children and young people in the participatory process also helps engage the adults around them, thereby involving even more people in this process.

In this context, “Ville en tête” took on the task of engaging children and youth and gathering insights into their current perceptions and uses of the area. A long-term project, organized into several meetings, was implemented to build a relationship of trust between facilitators and participants. Indeed, children and youth require a specific approach to ensure that the information gathered from these exchanges is just as useful as that obtained from other groups.

This long-term approach also helps raise participants’ awareness of urban planning issues and provides them with the tools to view the area with a fresh, critical, and observant eye. This work also aims to encourage participants to engage in the overall process so they can be heard, recognized, and involved in future changes.

“Explorations and Discoveries” Objectives

As part of the Riponne-Tunnel project, “Ville en tête” has therefore committed to highlighting young people’s perspectives, but above all to supporting them and raising their awareness so that they can articulate their interpretations of these spaces. The objective is therefore multifaceted:

• that children and young people can offer their own critical and observant perspectives on the public spaces of La Riponne and Le Tunnel, as well as more broadly on the spaces they encounter regularly;

• that the teams formed during the Riponne/Tunnel weekend can learn about and embrace the perspectives of children and young people;

• that the involvement of children and young people and their perspectives be incorporated into the project specifications, communicated to the teams participating in the ideas competition organized by the City of Lausanne, and taken into account in the development of the master plan.