The Association of Building a Good Home Together said yesterday it found that the equipment of outdoor playgrounds does not meet children’s needs, and also discovered that some of the equipment presents safety risks to kids, after it carried out on-site inspections of public parks and recreational areas.
The association yesterday announced the findings in a press conference at the headquarters of the Macau Women’s General Association of Macau (commonly known as Fu Luen) in Rua da Barca.
The press conference was co-hosted by the president of the Association of Building a Good Home, Wong Kit Cheng, Vice President Loi I Weng and Vice Secretary General Grace Wong Leong Kuan. Wong is a vice-president of Fu Luen.
According to Wong Kit Cheng, her association has recently carried out inspections of 35 public parks, 48 recreational areas and four country parks – the 87 locations that are listed on the website of the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (IACM). The association also inspected nine other recreational areas that are not listed on the bureau’s website – a total of 96 locations were inspected, she said.
According to the IACM website, one country park is in Taipa and three in Coloane.
Wong Kit Cheng noted that according to the findings of the 2016 Population By-census, Macau’s population aged 14 or below rose from 65,870 in 2011 to 77,847 last year, an 18.2 percent increase, exceeding the 17.8 percent growth of the total population during the same period. According to the findings of the by-census, Macau had a population
of 650,834 in August last year.
Wong Kit Cheng said many parents had told her group that the city’s public parks were crowded during weekends and public holidays so that their children needed to queue for a long time to use the apparatus in the playgrounds.
After inspecting the 96 locations, the association came to the conclusion that the government did not properly plan the construction of public parks – so that they are not evenly distributed in the city in terms of the different child populations (aged 14 or below) in different districts.
Consequently, the average area of public parks per child varies significantly in different districts in the city, the association said.
The association also found that children’s playground equipment in some public parks and recreational areas was in a state of disrepair which posed safety risks to children, the association said.
According to the association, 45 out of the 96 locations had playground facilities when it carried out the inspections.
The association also discovered poor hygiene conditions in some recreational areas. After the inspection, the group found that the hygiene conditions of nearly 60 percent of the children’s outdoor playground areas were not good enough or poor.
The association listed five recreational areas whose hygiene conditions were particularly poor. A recreational area in Areia Preta district was littered with piles of rubbish and infested with mosquitoes and flies, the group found.
In a recreational area in Toi San district, the association found a dead rat at the bottom of one of the playground’s apparatus, the group said.
The association urged the government to strengthen its management of playground facilities in the city’s public parks and recreational areas. The government should repair the equipment immediately after it was found to have been damaged, the group said.
The association also urged the government to improve the cleaning of children’s playgrounds and carry out disinfections regularly.
Lawmaker Wong Kit Cheng (centre), who heads the Association of Building a Good Home Together, flanked by fellow members Loi I Weng (right) and Grace Wong Leong Kuan, co-host yesterday’s press conference at the headquarters of the Macau Women’s General Association. Photo: MPDG
