No ball games: life and play through the eyes of children across the UK

Guardian documentary 2020

Our children should be Playing!

Not enduring this  ....

     F

Banksy's view

 

The Child's Right to Play - The reasons Why

Why does the world's most successful treaty, The UN Convention on the Rights of The Child, include the Right to Play?   Whyis somuch emphasis given by educators, doctors and ohers to this?

Play is as old as humanity, back over 3.7 million years ago our distantancestors walked in Tanzania, there is a child walking beside an adult, no doubt curious and anxious to play .... 

Zeal for Play may have propelled human evolution

Zeal for Play may have propelled human evolution   .....   New York Times article

It is because for the Child, its Play may be 'messing about', Fun.seemingly aimless, something every child does without thinking whether it has to or not, but it is also just about the mostimportant thing it does.   Play is about Learning, about trial and error, about discovery, about relationships, indeedabout exploring the world around it.   Not for nothing has Play been called 'the child's natural business' (Albert Einstein).   

Imagine a world where suddenly something stops all our adult activity in itstracks.  Who would do the 'next thing' and what would that be?   Children might just Play...   They do in every conceivablesituation and circumstance as soon as they are able, they colonise, explore, learn, adapt.        

And yet, we adults have ensured that much of the child's play environmenthas been degraded and compromised - residential streets occupied by the car,  children's freedom to play restricted by fears,intolerance, adult agendas and pressures.   Their health is compromised as is their healthy development.   

The role of Fair  Play for Children is to keep that right and obligation before society, and to encouragepeople to fight for its advance.  We seek your support, membership, ACTION.      We are a Campaign for The Child's Right to Play - JOIN US!

   FAIR PLAY IN ACTION

What Fair Play is doing, its policies and projects, how you canparticipate.   Click on titles to access.

OUR CURRENT CAMPAIGN

What the Law says your Local Education Authority should provide forChildren and Young Peoples Recreation by Law

revsised November 2024

Fair Play's information note explains their duties and obligations.

Fair Play -The beginnings

A LETTER TO 'The Times':      How Fair Play started

Fair Play 1972

The Letter that strated it all:  The Times' 31st July 1972

On 31st July 1972, a powerful letter appeared in 'The Times' in the wake of a tragedy - two boys aged nine and seven drowned playing in a tin bath in an East End Canal in London .... for want of somewhere safe toplay.

That tragedy led Bishop Trevor Huddleston CR, then Bishop of Stepney, to pen an angry reproach in the press, he hadknown both boys and their families.   It was not right, he insisted, that such a deficit should have led to their deaths.

With the same zeal that marked his defiance of apartheid in his nativeSouth Africa (from which he had been exiled for his views). Father Trevor launched this campaign, soon supported by The Duke ofEdinburgh, it was, and is, known as Fair Play for Children.  Its mission is to achieve that safe, but challenging, play space for every child, as now stated in Article 31of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

At Fair Play, how do we measure progress towards that aim?  Though much has been achieved, overall can we say that there has been much movement?    Yes, the community and voluntarysector in the UK has led the way, against huge odds mainly thrown in their way by the statutory sector.   Oh, plenty ofplatitudes, 'nice thoughts', but when we examine the record of government at all levels, it has been a sad tale of non-achievement,even of hindrance.  

To be blunt, always the first target for cuts especially by councils,often running counter to their statutory obligations, which goes all too often unchallenged from society.   Fair Play has been and is running a campaign on this aspect, to get thelaw updated so that councils are held to account by the Government. YOU CAN HELP IN THIS!


MPs and Ministers, local government chiefs, councillors etc all KNOW theimportance of Play, or they pay it enough lip service that, were that translated into action and resource, we'd by now have a Play-scapefor Heaven on earth.  At this time, so much has been lost, trashed by cuts, our children andyoung people have been betrayed.

Not very celebratory?    Well, what is stated does notdiminish one jot the years of hard work and dedication people and organisations have contributed and continue to do so, Fair Play isdedicated to making sure they have first call.

We will be aiming to secure legislative changes through dialogue withthe Government.   You can help by aiming letters at the your MPs to get their support.  Keep in touch via this website.  We urge you to redouble the fight for a Fair Deal for Children's Play.   Join Fair Play, DONATE, campaign with us!

for the Child's Right to Play