Abstract
For decades, numerous countries have been witnessing the Street Children phenomenon where millions of children worldwide are subjected to risks. Despite the crucial role of intermediate non-residential interventions - using drop-in centers- in protecting and rehabilitating street children, there is a paucity of research addressing the quality of design of these centers and how architecture might influence their operational process. Those observations invite investigating drop-in centers used in practice from a design perspective and question adapting architectural applications for humanitarian emergencies, focusing on “Child-Friendly Spaces”. The study aims to provide solutions for better quality design, facilitating operational challenges. The methodology undertakes the investigation through primary and secondary axes. This involves conducting literature and international precedents review and secondarily, an Egyptian contextual first-hand documentation and qualitative analysis of selected centers.
Highlights
For well over three decades, numerous countries have been witnessing a phenomenon popularly known as The Street Children phenomenon
There is a noticeable gap between what architectural research offers and operational challenges centers face in real life including economic limitations and children's constant mobility. Such observations- - invite investigating drop-in centers used in practice from a design perspective and questioning adapting architectural applications for Humanitarian Emergencies (HE), Child-Friendly Spaces (CFS) with similar desired properties, used during or in the aftermath of disasters (Kennedy et al, 2008)
In addition to reviewing literature and legislations concerning the phenomenon in Egypt, the study relied on unstructured interviews with officials at the Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity, semi-structured interviews with 86.6% of the staff of three drop-in centers of Resala Foundation- a local NonGovernmental Organization (NGO)- (7 staff members) and 63.3% of the hosted children (22 children)
Summary
For well over three decades, numerous countries have been witnessing a phenomenon popularly known as The Street Children phenomenon. The result is a need for nonpunitive and gradual comprehensive intervention programs most suitable for protecting, rehabilitating, and reintegrating children into society (De Benitez, 2003; Dybicz, 2005; Nyamai & Waiganjo, 2014). Attaining these objectives has gained the interest of the research community who has long been developing intervention programs with several approaches (Figure 1) (Brink, 1997; Abt Enterprises LLC, 2001; Volpi, 2002; Rosenblatt, 2012)
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