Culture café for children

Set up in 2002 near the new MK2 Quai de Seine cinema complex, Cafézoïde has played an important role in promoting social interaction in this redeveloped part of Paris’s 19th arrondissement. Situated in 160 square-metre premises between the Place Stalingrad and the rue de Crimée, the association aims to build on the experiments carried out from the 1970s by the clinical psychologist Jacqueline Eschenbrenner at the Maison des Enfants (Children’s House) in Louveciennes. Eschenbrenner believed in the importance of creating an independent cultural space for children, and this is the same course followed by Anne-Marie Rodenas at Cafézoïde. Charging a derisory annual subscription (six euros per family, with a reduction for large families; ten euros for adults), the culture café is open to children from zero to 16 years of age. They can buy cakes, non-alcoholic drinks or a two-euro lunch, while enjoying painting, music, board-games and other activities. The café also organises exhibitions and theatrical shows, all based around the ideals of solidarity and social diversity. Article Two of the association’s statutes sets out the goal: “By opening a children’s café, to create an environment that encourages their self-expression and social development, as well as respect for the person, background, rights and liberty of the child as set out in the Convention on Children’s Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1989.” Consciousness-raising is part of the aim, as illustrated in Novmber 2009 when a week of ‘children’s assemblies” marked the 20th anniversary of the International Convention on Children’s Rights. The association’s philosophy also builds on the ideas of the French educationalist Françoise Dolto or the experimental Ecole Vitruve in Paris, where the child is considered as an entirely autonomous being. That is certainly the impression the observer has on entering the Cafézoïde, with its wall-mosaic built entirely by the children themselves.