Past Friday 4th April a technical education about children’s playgrounds was hold at Auditorium Magna of EEME Business School at Alicante. This course, realised in cooperation with certifying institute ASES XXI, trained about the practical application of safety norm for children’s playgrounds EN-1176.
This training about safety aspects of children’s playgrounds has been attended by part of Mobipark’s team, municipal staff, responsibles for public parks at municipalities, construction companies, architects and maintenance services.
The course has been hold by José María Fariñas, Director of ASES XXI, who demonstrated with the help of concrete examples the importance of complying with the general and specific requirements of the safety norm for children’s playgrounds. Mr. Fariñas explained the significance of all involved process for a correct compliance of the norm, starting with the design of the play facilities, through the correct installation, to the relevance of service and maintenance over the entire life utility of the installed play elements in order to guarantee children’s safety.
The participants could test the interactive game Musicball with funny nursery songs. It works with kinetic energy, without cables and without external power source!
It has been pointed out that since past 1st November 2018 the edition 2009 of the safety norm UNE-EN-1176 (children’s playgrounds) parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 the edition 2009 of the norm UNE-EN-1177 (impact attenuating surfaces) are not valid any longer.
That’s why inspections realized posterior to this date according to edition 2009 of these norms do not possess validity. These safety norms for children’s playgrounds have been annulled and substituted by the new versions UNE-EN 1176:2018 and UNE-EN 1177:2918.
The closing discourse of the training was hold by our colleague Patricia Zahn, responsible for Mobipark product management, and focused on the question “Children’s playgrounds – inclusive and/or exclusive?” Based on the concept of INCLUSION of the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, she explained to the participants the differences between adapted, accessible and inclusive playground equipment.
The risks of baring children with disabilities despite well-meant intentions and concrete possibilities how to succeed in creating inclusive playgrounds have been illustrated vividly.
