Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

The intervention is part of Giochi al Centro, the project in collaboration with Fondazione di Comunità Milano 

Milan, June 15 2019 - "Gioco al Centro - Playgrounds for all" is a special project launched last year by the Municipality of Milan and the Fondazione di Comunità Milano, Città, Sud Ovest, Sud Est, Martesana with the aim of creating equipped areas accessible with rides and inclusive games in the public parks of the nine municipalities of the city. The process was started starting from children, identifying the right to play for all as a priority of general interest. Playgrounds are in fact little frequented by children with disabilities, because - in the absence of games suited to their needs - the conditions for real participation and inclusion are not created.

After the accessible playground created at the Montanelli Gardens inaugurated in April 2018, the second accessible playground area was presented and inaugurated today in the beautiful Villa Finzi Park, in Municipality 2. Present at the inauguration were the Green Councilor Pierfrancesco Maran, l the councilor for Social Policies Pierfrancesco Majorino, the vice-president of the Milan Community Foundation Carlo Marchetti, the Mayor's Delegate for Accessibility Policies Lisa Noja, the president of the Social Policies and Health Services Commission Angelica Vasile, the President of the Municipality 2 Samuele Piscina, the President of L'abilità Onlus Laura Borghetto, the National President of UILDM Marco Rasconi, the President of ANFFAS Rossella Collina, the Vice President of the Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired Franco Lisi, the President of Intercampus and councilor of the Milano Community Foundation Carlotta Moratti and Esselunga Customer Director Roberto Selva. 

"Today we make the Villa Finzi Park even more beautiful because it is accessible and safe for all children - declare the Green Councilor Pierfrancesco Maran and the Social Policies Councilor Pierfrancesco Majorino -. It is a commitment that we have made together with the City Council : make play areas inclusive to allow the little ones to have fun on equal terms. Today they can do this at the Montanelli Gardens, City Life, the Biblioteca degli Alberi, the Formentano park, the Favole park, the Bazlen gardens. It's not enough, we want that more and more green areas are barrier-free. This is why together with the Community Foundation, to whom our thanks go, we continue to work to bring at least one inclusive area to every municipality of the city, the next will be the one in via Martinetti in municipality 7" .

“Play is the first social context in which every child can feel that they belong to a community and learn to live with others by welcoming their diversity – comments the Vice President of the Milan Community Foundation Carlo Marchetti – this is the essence of our project which we want to carry forward with conviction. A civil society guarantees all children the right to play, for this reason we ask the Milanese who share our commitment to make their contribution to the Solidarity Fund opened by the Foundation, by joining our forces with yours, large and small, we will be able to create places beautiful places where children can play together and learn to grow.” The Community Foundation and the Urban Planning, Green and Agriculture Department of the Municipality of Milan collected the indications of the municipalities and defined the planning of the interventions; the plan includes two new playgrounds in 2019; after Villa Finzi we work on the park for Municipality 7; in 2020 we will continue with the objective of two/three parks a year, until the project is completed and there is an accessible playground in each of the Milanese municipalities.

The Villa Finzi project is particularly interesting because it is a historic garden and a totally new playground, set in a very lively context. In fact, inside the park there are services for citizens: a nursery, a nursery school and a primary school, a social center for the elderly, social orientation offices and the local health and social care company. The services for disabled people are significant, thanks to the presence of the Pini e Negri Disabled Day Centers and the Solidarity House. A great meeting space for children, families and the neighborhood community.

The design of each playground sees the involvement of the Green Department, the Associations Delegates to the Permanent Disability Table and the Mayor's delegate for Accessibility policies, Lisa Noja. The working group makes use of the pedagogical skills of the L'abilità onlus association, of the specific skills of ANFFAS, of UILDM and LEDHA Milan, of UICI and of the international experience of InterCampus. 

The new park is based on playful and ergonomic criteria which have led to the selection of games suitable for ensuring accessibility to children with various disabilities - motor, intellectual, visual - to encourage inclusive play. The concept of inclusion guided the design which conceives the entire area as an integrated space for playing together, for a true sharing of the gaming experience.

The “Playgrounds for Everyone” project is a laboratory that learns and evolves: after the first park at the Montanelli Gardens, observations and suggestions from users contributed to identifying even better solutions for Villa Finzi. For example, the search for more functional flooring, solutions for greater accessibility for visually impaired or blind children or parents with the inclusion of a tactile-plantar path and an olfactory path with essences and flowers.

The new Playground covers an area of ​​280 square meters, equipped with colored anti-trauma flooring, all children can have fun with innovative structures that respond to different inclusive play needs: the Becky carousel, the Fun City Village with numerous sensory panels , musical instruments with drums and a metallophone tuned to 15 musical notes; the Cozy Dome house with its particular welcoming shape; the beloved and inevitable games such as rocking and swings. 

In addition to the Playground, an awareness project in schools. Building an accessible and usable park means guaranteeing all children the right to play as established by the UN Convention on the Rights of Children and Adolescents (1989), but even the most beautiful and functional structure is not sufficient, alone, to guarantee the right to play for the most vulnerable children. This is why it is essential to raise awareness of respect for others in the new generations, to activate solidarity and to re-build communities.

With these aims, the L'abilità non-profit association created Tutti Insieme per Giocare, an initiative aimed at 150 classes in nursery and primary schools with the aim of creating awareness workshops on the topic of disability and diversity, which involves teachers and parents, so that they develop a respectful and attentive outlook towards those who are different from themselves. The workshops in schools will take place during the entire 2019-2020 school year, and will be conducted by L'abilità onlus, with the collaboration of UILDM and the support of Fondazione Cariplo.

Play at the Center - Playgrounds for All is solidarity: equipping the play areas with this level of attention and care requires an important commitment for the Foundation; To ensure increasing quality, a Solidarity Fund will be activated which will collect the gesture of solidarity from private citizens, businesses and entities that share the aims of the project. A fund to let children play together: an appeal that is launched today to all the citizens of Milan, to start a solidarity competition between the citizens of the Municipalities so that they unite, with small and large donations. The Milan Community Foundation will combine the donated resources with its own with the aim of creating other accessible parks. To find out more www.fondazionecomunitamilano.org

UILDM Milano has already ensured membership of the fund thanks to the donations collected with the support of Esselunga. After the presentation to the press and the symbolic ribbon cutting, today will continue with a party designed for all children: they will be the protagonists of a show and a gaming experience accompanied by Amamente educators, they will be able to experience the emotion of goals with the international coaches of Inter Campus, create magical soap bubbles with Oltre i Sogni, become jugglers with Parada, create a work of art with Mister Caos. And for lunch, everyone on the lawn for a fun picnic. Children and parents will be able to count on volunteers from all the associations involved in the project.