Leisure Centers: Framework For Children’s Development

The leisure centers dedicated to children and teenagers have emerged in Côte d’Ivoire since 1968. At that time, the Ivorian government decided to invest in the organization of public recreation centers. Two years later the private sector got involved in this activity and opened twenty (20) leisure centers. Toba (1981) reported that 34.000 children attended to these centers during the school holidays. However, from that time on, this activity collapsed. It happened due to many issues such as financial problems (economic crisis and the structural adjustment plans); administrative issues (administrative guardianship dispute between the Ministry of Youth and the Ministry of Sports and Leisure about the organization of public recreation centers); and the social and political crisis which occurred in Côte d’Ivoire from 2000 to 2011. As an illustration, the Department of Associative Life and Youth Empowerment of the Ministry of Youth, which is in charge of the regulation and the organization, did not organize any public leisure centers these last 2 years. As a result, thousands of children were deprived from their rights to participate to public leisure centers during their school holidays. In order to solve the issue the Department of Leisure of the Ministry of Sports and Leisure has installed since 2015, two pilot leisure centers in the primary schools of the district of Abidjan, precisely in Marcory and Port Bouet. Each year around 500 children attend to these centers. For the school year 2016- 2017, two leisure centers were held in Port Bouet in the SOGEPHIA SCHOOL COMPLEX. Twenty-three instructors and two managers supervised the pupils during school and public holidays. After 3 years, a survey was ordained to assess the impacts of this project on the pupils and eventually replicate it in other municipalities and school complexes of Côte d’Ivoire. As far as the methodological approach is concerned, we elected a mixed study in other words we realized a qualitative and a quantitative study. This survey was undertaken in June 2017, during the closing ceremony of the leisure centers. The sample constituted with 337 individuals divided as follows: 15 instructors (from all grades); 210 pupils (80 boys and 130 girls, from the third to fifth year of primary school); 110 parents; 02 managers of leisure center. For the scientific analysis, we used the dialectic and the content analysis methods. The results show how the interviewed persons perceived the recreation centers.

Acessar