Lack of playgrounds for kids

Very few playgrounds for children

·        Kids lack playgrounds

The Department of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs reported that Dong Nai province presently has one provincial Children's House and 3 district-level Children's House in the districts of Xuan Long, Long Thanh, and Tan Phu. However, Mr Hung – head of the Social and Cultural Board, Dong Nai province People’s Committee said that the activities of 3 Children’s House in such districts still have been limited in fields of content, expense, organization and management. Therefore, these activities have not been shown its effectiveness yet. Representative of Dong Nai Department of Nature and Human Resources said “The land fund for the purpose of building recreation and entertainment areas for children is part of land distribution targets of cultural institutions. In reality, local community learning centres and commune-level cultural centres have regularly organized cultural, entertainment and recreational activities for children, but these were just combined with those of adults. Moreover, some cultural centres just open in working time, thus it is difficult for children to attend activities. Employees of these centres are holders of several positions, and not deeply trained in children”.

Luu Thi My Phuong, Deputy director of Dong Nai Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, emphasized “Dong Nai Center for Culture & Sports is a recreation and entertainment place for all local residents. Therefore, the organization of cultural, entertainment and physical activities for children has not yet paid much attention as well as not met the demand of spiritual life for children regularly. These activities have just been focused on holidays”. Specially, children of the workers who are overloaded with work have been put at the greatest disadvantage. After school, these kids have not had any playgrounds, and just go around in small houses.

Children are playing at the provincial Children’s House

It is reported that the current playgrounds built by private units are at small scale with a few activities, let alone the security level of games.

Due to the lack of playgrounds for children, the cases of children injured and violating the law in the past time are noteworthy. Nguyen Thi Nhu Thao, a student of Phuoc Binh secondary school stated “We live in the deep-lying and remote areas that entertainment activities are rarely held. Many of us did not come to the cultural centre because it is too far. In summer holidays, we often help our parents and gather together to bath in the river which is very dangerous. I hope that there are a lot of playgrounds for children”.

·        What should we do to build a healthy playground?

This question has been raised to require the reasonable solutions from competent authorities.

Deputy Director Luu Thi My Phuong said that the province should plan to build the system of district-level children's house, creating favorable conditions for children to enjoy themselves as well as to discover and improve their aptitude. The construction requires the interest in such factors as location and convenient traffic to attract regular participation of children.

According to Department of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs, it is necessary to synchronously construct infrastructure facilities and cultural institutions; to train a group of dynamic employees to effectively manage these playgrounds; especially to strongly promote the socialization model for child care and protection in order to call for the investment in building playgrounds for children. Along with the construction of playgrounds for children, the online games services in the province also require a better management.

At present, the provincial People’s Committee is discussing to choose the area for investors to carry out the first big project for children in Dong Nai with an area of about 100ha in Phuoc An-Long Tho commune, Nhon Trach district.

Hopefully, with the attention of competent authorities, there will be more playgrounds for children in the whole province.

Reported by Lien Huong, Translated by Minh Minh