Facts

Category: Public – civil society partnership
Location: Four public spaces across Lima in la Ensenada neighbourhood in Puente Piedra: Pasaje El Rosario and Pasaje Los Álamos, and in the Pamplona Alta neighbourhood in San Juan de Miraflores: Parque El Óvalo and Parque el Remanente.
Time: October 2021 – December 2022
Partners: Avina Foundation, Ocupa tu Calle, Mano a Mano, Block by Block Foundation
Participants: Women from the local communities

Her story

Challenges

Several of the pedestrian pathways across Lima are key for the mobility of local residents. They are located on hillsides and because of this they are vulnerable and dangerous. The aim is to make them more secure from landslides, create garden patches for locals to grow their own food and make the area safe from violence and crime. In addition, other public spaces are not used by locals because of its current use such as for informal parking or drug selling and consumption. The aim is to increase the use of the space among women, children and older people, and improve pedestrian access to the space and implement children’s play equipment.

Solutions 

The Female Builders are local women, many of them single mothers who have become unemployed during the pandemic. Their knowledge of the local area and building techniques that are suitable for hillside areas are important to the development of safe and accessible public spaces. The Female Builders will pass on their knowledge to other groups of women through peer-to-peer workshops. In transforming the public spaces in the idea, the economy will be revived at the neighbourhood scale.

Opportunities

Fundación Avina is a Latin American organization that promotes sustainability through collaborative processes, generating large-scale positive impacts from the global south. Ocupa Tu Calle is an initiative of Lima Cómo Vamos to improve the quality of life and reduce urban inequality through the recovery, improvement and generation of public spaces. Mano a Mano is a Franco-Peruvian association that seeks to improve the living conditions of the inhabitants of Puente Piedra, making them actors and beneficiaries of the implemented projects.

Thanks to an alliance between Fundación Avina and UN-Habitat; with the support of Ocupa Tu Calle and Mano a Mano, four urban intervention projects were developed in the AAHH La Ensenada in Puente Piedra and in Pamplona Alta in San Juan de Miraflores. Through these interventions, abandoned or disused places were recovered, which have been transformed into public spaces to increase the safety of the areas, reduce the risk of landslides, strengthen areas for early childhood, and provide food security to neighboring families.

Impact

This project trained and empowered 30 neighbors with the guidance of Her City, a UN Habitat initiative that supports urban development through the active participation of girls and women in the process of planning and designing public spaces to improve his experience and his bond with the city. This process included a Block by Block methodology, through the use of different tools such as Minecraft, a popular construction video game that allowed the participants to imagine and redesign the space they wanted to intervene in; as well as Inhabit Place, a mobile application for the collection of data on the type of use given to a certain public space.

Through a collaborative process between residents of the neighborhoods of La Ensenada and Pamplona Alta, passageways, retaining walls, games and urban gardens were built that will benefit more than 5,500 people, mainly women and girls. These spaces were co-designed by digital tools thanks to the initiative of Fundación Avina, Block by Block Foundation and UN-Habitat.

The works contemplated in Pamplona Alta inaugurated in El Ovalo Park, includes games for boys and girls and urban gardens that will benefit more than 3,000 residents of the community of San Juan de Miraflores. “We believe that having recovered the park is a sign that we are making a change that will benefit the boys and girls who will now have a space to play and learn about caring for plants. In addition, it was a very nice experience to be able to participate in the design of the park, the mamitas de la olla have been able to participate in the sessions and we have been able to support them at work”, share the neighbors Flor Gómez and Patricia Chuquichaico.

Along these lines, in mid-December the public spaces recovered in La Ensenada and built by 15 women leaders from Puente Piedra will be inaugurated: Pasaje El Rosario and Pasaje Los Álamos, which include spaces for rest and urban gardens for the direct benefit of 2,500 residents, especially girls and boys who will be able to move more easily to and from their study center.

Lessons learned

The achievements have been possible with the active participation of the neighbors, especially women, mothers and girls, whose ideas have been heard and considered for the design and construction of the recovered public spaces. Likewise, this project responds to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 5,10, 11, 16 and 17 and to the search for safe, inclusive, accessible, green and quality public spaces promoted by the New Urban Agenda. Thanks to this project and the key articulation of the actors involved, it is expected to identify new allied organizations for the replicability of the project in other vulnerable areas of Lima.

The transformation of the sites can act as inspiration and evidence for developing further sites across Lima as well as affect public policy in Lima and wider Peru.

Results

Block 1: Stakeholder engagement

A multi-stakeholder team of girls and professionals to mainstream youth, gender and socio-economic perspectives throughout the entire planning, design and implementation process.

Block 3: Site specific assessment

Collecting quantitative and qualitative data by girls and young women on the state of the space that is considered a top priority for improvement.

Block 5: Designing ideas 

A rough design in Minecraft of the new space made by the girls and professionals based on the solutions identified throughout the process.
Photo: @ Mano a Mano

Block 7: Action plans

Detailed plans collaboratively developed by the girls and professionals for the construction phase including cost estimations and maintenance plans.
Photo: @ Ocupa Tu Calle

Block 9: Implementation and follow-up

An evaluation of the process, follow up on construction by the girls and a final report on the results of the entire project with a mainstreaming strategy to scale up similar initiatives. Photo: @ Ocupa Tu Calle

Related SDGs

The project relates to the 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 5, 10, 11, 16 and 17.

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Her City is a joint urban development initiative by UN-Habitat (the United Nations Human Settlements Programme) and Shared City Foundation.