In October 2024, the Streets for Kids project was inaugurated in the Jordão neighborhood in Recife, Brazil, a community where children faced multiple challenges accessing safe and high-quality public spaces. Heavy rains, frequent flooding, and landslide risks often made their journey to school dangerous and unpredictable. Throughout the process, children, caregivers, school staff, and residents were engaged to co-create solutions that improve access to schools, supporte outdoor play and social connection, and set a precedent for future child-focused street transformations in Recife.
Scaling up Streets for Kids: Highlights from the 2025 Streets for Kids Leadership Accelerator
In 2025, GDCI brought together a selected group of 10 city teams working to scale up their efforts to create more and better Streets for Kids in Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador through multiple projects, programs, and policies. Here’s a look back and key learnings from a two-month online capacity-building program.
In October 2024, the Streets for Kids project was inaugurated in the Jordão neighborhood in Recife, Brazil, a community where children faced multiple challenges accessing safe and high-quality public spaces. Heavy rains, frequent flooding, and landslide risks often made their journey to school dangerous and unpredictable. Throughout the process, children, caregivers, school staff, and residents were engaged to co-create solutions that improve access to schools, supporte outdoor play and social connection, and set a precedent for future child-focused street transformations in Recife.
Since its launch in 2023, cities around the world have embraced the reverse periscope as a playful tool to reimagine streets from a child’s perspective. From community walkshops to international conferences, the tool is helping spark deeper conversations about child-friendly design. Discover how practitioners are using it to shift perspectives—and shape safer, more joyful streets for kids.
Scaling Impact: Ten Cities Join the 2025 Streets for Kids Leadership Accelerator
As GDCI welcomes ten cities to scale up the impact of their Streets for Kids projects as part of the 2025 Leadership Accelerator, we invite them to share their past accomplishments and bold visions.
Scaling up Streets for Kids in Brazil, Mexico and Zambia
Designing streets for kids goes beyond one-off street transformations and temporary events. It requires scaling up and making street improvements part of citywide programs and policies. In 2024, four cities, Canoas, Brazil; León, Mexico; Lusaka, Zambia; and Recife, Brazil, participated in the latest Streets for Kids program round, which included tailored technical assistance to implement projects and scale up the vision for kids-first projects, programs, and policies.
GDCI marks this World Children's Day with the release of two new booklets, “How to Engage Kids in Street Design” and “How to Evaluate Street Transformations Near Schools.”
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In 2023, ten cities across four continents started designing their streets for kids. Collectively, the cohort reclaimed over 40,000 SqM of public space that prioritizes children and caregivers, engaged over 4,000 children in the process, and trained 140 practitioners.
World Children’s Day: Celebrating Streets For Kids
See how our Streets for Kids projects are helping more kids and young people get to school and play safely, while also creating comfortable, healthy, and enjoyable spaces for their caregivers and the wider community.
El taller «Calles para la niñez» inspira a los líderes locales de Chile a replantear el diseño urbano
Funcionarios públicos del diseño urbano y desarrollo infantil de los municipios de Renca y Cerrillos en Santiago de Chile idean calles para los niños a través de un taller interactivo de GDCI.
Streets for Kids Workshop Inspires Chilean City Leaders
Public officials and urban design and childhood development practitioners from Renca and Cerrillos municipalities in Santiago, Chile envision streets for kids through GDCI interactive workshop.
Announcing GDCI’s 2023 Streets for Kids Selected Cities
Ten cities working to make streets safer, more accessible, and more enjoyable for children and their caregivers will take that work to new levels this year with the help of a global team of experts providing hands-on support.
