Vienna Children's Million

Two boys fought for their dream playground

Reto and Lorin put Deputy Mayor Christoph Wiederkehr and City Councillor Jügern Czernohorszky's sense of balance to the test.

(Bild: Holl Reinhard)

Reto (9) and Lorin (11) worked hard with other children to create a balancing and play area in their park in Vienna's Hernals district and can now reap the rewards of their efforts. This also impresses the city councillors responsible.

Words like "fall protection equipment" now come easily to 9-year-old Lorin. No wonder, because he, his 11-year-old brother Reto and their supporters of the same age have been fighting for three years for the redesign of Clemens Krauss Park in Hernals. Now their submission to the Vienna Children and Youth Million is a reality and the park has a 350 square meter balancing landscape.

"Any idea can change our city"
There are several reasons why Deputy Mayor Christoph Wiederkehr and Jürgen Czernohorszky, the city councillor responsible for parks, did not miss the personal inauguration of the play equipment: At a cost of 110,000 euros, the balancing landscape is one of the largest individual projects of the Children and Youth Million. And the idea actually came from the children alone and not from schools or youth organizations as with most of the other projects submitted.

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For Wiederkehr, this proves: "Anyone who gets active and gets involved can achieve great things - just like Lorin and Reto. Every idea, every commitment can change our city and enrich the lives of many." He also finds it "inspiring" to see how the Children and Youth Million "transforms the ideas of our young citizens into tangible reality - in this case as a new space for movement that benefits everyone."

You had an idea, you looked for supporters and made compromises - do you know what that is? Politics!

Stadtrat Jürgen Czernohorszky

The two boys really went all out for their wish, from collecting signatures from the children in the neighborhood to negotiating with Stadtgärten (MA 42). The children themselves were able to put together their playscape from 20 possible elements and, for example, voluntarily gave up the Flying Fox they had been longing for - because otherwise there wouldn't have been much left to do.

Lorin is satisfied with the result. He doesn't want to talk about the fact that there were some conflicts between the children - some insisted on wobble boards, others on the stone course. In the end, they came to an agreement. He has actually learned a lot about politics.