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The virtual street where children can learn about real dangers
Katharine Barney05.05.09
A virtual street featuring computer-generated gangs, drug-dealers and paedophiles is to be built in south London to teach children how to cope with the dangers of real life.
The £8 million scheme will create a main road, shops and houses then people them with animated offenders.
The “Life Centre” in Sutton is intended to teach children, aged eight to 10, how to stay safe, as well as encourage them to recycle and minimise energy use.
But the scheme, part-funded by a £4 million National Lottery grant has been criticised as a waste of money when Sutton council has millions of pounds caught in collapsed Icelandic banks.
The centre, due to open next year, will lead children down a mock-up road with shops on one side and a giant film screen on the other.
The virtual street will have traffic, cafés, shops and restaurants and can be changed to recreate day or night. Scenarios acted out will include road safety problems and being intimidated by gangs or approached by drug dealers.
A “flat” will overlook the street with a working computer in the bedroom to explain the dangers of social networking sites and internet grooming.
A “white room” will, meanwhile, have film screens on all four walls that portray scenarios such as the space becoming a landfill site, to emphasise the importance of recycling. The Life
Centre will be the first of its kind in the UK and is aimed at helping children learn “junior citizenship”.
The council will try to encourage schools from as far afield as Kent and Berkshire to visit.
Lib-Dem councillor Graham Tope, executive member for community safety, said: “It's vital that from an early age our young people are equipped with the knowledge to make the right choices. We cannot always be there to hold our children's hands, but we can help them to make their own decisions.
“This is where the Life Centre comes in, using the latest technical wizardry to create an exciting, engaging and safe environment in which young people can explore the issues that affect them.”
The centre will also include a library, sports facilities, a youth club and an eco-garden. But opposition councillors say the Life Centre, in Sutton Common Road, is a waste of money.
The Tory group says that for the scheme to break even, 60 per cent of all pupils from year six to year eight in south London and north Surrey would have to visit.
They claim £1.3 million has been diverted from school repairs and £2 million from council building repairs.
Conservative leader Paul Scully said: “There is no need to be immersed in a multimedia centre to be told it's wrong to take drugs or get in a stranger's car. It will fall to local taxpayers to plug this gap.”
Reader views (1)
Bogeymen such as drug dealers and "paedophiles" are frequently used to frighten citizens in order to encourage them to look towards the government for "protection" from imagined dangers, which then justifies an increased level of control. This may be nothing more than an attempt to indoctrinate children with the same ideas that have turned so many adults into such tools.
- Gary, Maastricht, Netherlands
