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.
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.
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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.
Caminhos da Escola: How Streets for Kids transformed school streets in Fortaleza’s Planalto Ayrton Senna neighborhood
In 2019, Fortaleza established the Caminhos da Escola (Pathways to School) program with the goal of reducing the number of children killed and injured in road crashes.
My Way to School: Making kids’ journeys to school in Santiago, Chile, safer and more enjoyable
In 2019, the GDCI team selected the capital city of Santiago, Chile, as a Streets for Kids Technical Assistance project. Together with Ciudad Emergente, a Chilean nonprofit, we selected Enrique Soro street as the project site. The project’s main objectives were to establish safe intersections, extend sidewalks, and reduce speeds.
Sixty leaders, twenty cities, one focus: How to make better streets for kids
GDCI’s first-ever Streets for Kids Leadership Accelerator welcomed 60 professionals from 20 cities around the world, all working at the intersection of children’s wellbeing and transportation. This competitively selected group came together for twelve online sessions over a six months period for an intensive course in street design best practices. Perhaps most importantly, this was a unique opportunity for them to share ideas, questions, and strategies with each other. Here’s a look back at what went into this program.
