Soft mobility for children. Option which must be given

by Eleonora Anello

Do you remember when you went to school alone? Certainly, many also took their bike, some for pleasure and some, worse, forced. For the kids who live in cities, today the daily journey to school is done in most cases in the car with all the consequences of having repercussions on their health because either they do not move or the fine particles produced poison the air they breathe. More generally, the possibility that young people have to move independently in their daily living environment, has shrunk dramatically over the past decades.

Going to school in a sustainable way can develop alternative routes that are not achieved without the use of different modes of transportation than the usual car and, also, become important moment of socialization that helps develop motor, intellectual and social, as opposed to a lonely, chaotic and harmful path done by car.

Initiatives to “sweet mobility”, like the Pedibus (Feet bus) or Bicibus (Bicycle bus) of Reggio Emilia (Italy), that have many years of experience and received several awards, slowly, according with their nature, are coming to the fore. If the car is essential, the governments are trying to ensure that it is the fullest possible through efforts of car sharing and carpooling.

For those who are fed up to be accompanied but also for those who do not want to make the chauffeur, the Fiab (Italian Federation of Friends of Biking) through the national manifestation Bimbimbici (Children on bicycle) has been promoting the slow and sustainable mobility for eleven years. It does this through simple but engaging tools. One of them, the starting point of the initiative, is the national design competition open to all Italians school children aged 4 to 11 years. The theme for this year's event is "My city by bike: it is now, how I wish it was tomorrow". To join you must complete an online form on the official website where you can also download the needed materials to promote the contest.

All participants are required to create graphic and pictorial work through the preferred technique. Young artists are invited to «represent an original and effective way the use of the bicycle as a transportation by which to walk more consciously and more freedom in the streets of their city» as it says on the notice. «All these years we have experienced that the competition is a different communication tool that allowing us to make direct contact with the guys who will take the initiative» explains Claudia Favero, project coordinator of Bimbimbici, «teachers, indispensable partners to the success of the operation, as the main vehicle for promoting the event, are invited to make the competition through frontal lectures».
The winning entries will be evaluated before all the effectiveness communication also because it will be used as promotional material for the next edition.

The registrations will end in May, when the streets of participating cities will cross the ecological bike ride, closing event of the manifestation.
Among the objectives of Bimbimbici, in addition to spreading use of the bicycle, the restatement of the theme of child safety on the roads and the awareness of the political sector to push the implementation of protected and dedicated pedestrian-cycle paths.

Let's play!