There is a space that integrates reading, aesthetics education, childcare and parent-child activities in Wangjing, a subdistrict of Beijing's Chaoyang District. That space has become a favorite "hideout" of children. In the "hideout," the children can enjoy fun and educational activities, all while their parents have some free time to relax.
The child-friendly space — Yumeng Chaoyang Child-Friendly Growth Space — was created by Li Qiuxue, a community designer. She is also head of Beijing Chaoyang District Youth Huimeng Art Service Promotion Center, a women's social organization. Li has long been dedicated to advancing child-friendly development. She was named a National March 8th Red-Banner Holder in March 2026.
Li attended the Global Leaders' Meeting on Women, in Beijing, in October 2025. She was impressed as she listened to Chinese President Xi Jinping's keynote address at the opening ceremony. Xi said, "We should jointly foster an enabling environment for women's growth and development." Li agrees, noting, "Child-friendly spaces are not only for children's growth, but also for reducing women's childcare burdens, and allowing women to develop with peace of mind ... I will lead my team in fully leveraging our professional strengths, empowering community services, through designing, and enabling more women to realize their own value and share in development achievements, while participating in child-friendly development."
Transforming Spaces for Children
Li graduated, with a degree in fashion design, from China Women's University, in Beijing, in 2015. She believes designs can convey beauty and warmth. After she read Design for Society, she realized designs are also for connecting people, and not just for aesthetic expression. With this belief, she transformed herself from a fashion designer into a community designer.
In 2018, seizing opportunities presented by urban renewal and the development of social organizations, Li founded Youth Huimeng Art Service Promotion Center. She threw herself into her new career, and she became deeply involved in the renovation of old residential areas, and in the development of child-friendly spaces.
The transformation of a "garbage wall," which was dilapidated and dirty, was the first community-renovation project of Li's team. Li had noticed the wall, situated in Anzhen, a subdistrict of Chaoyang District, was on a route heavily traversed by children and elderly residents. "Could we turn this wall into a place children would love?" Li asked herself.
Li organized a "special design meeting," during which she invited children from the community to draw whatever they wanted on the wall. Some drew dinosaurs, others drew rainbows, and one child wrote, in "wobbly" characters, "Please don't litter." Parents and their children worked together to create a 26-meter-long painting (an art wall) centered on the theme of sorting waste, which consisted of the children's drawings. Li also, with residents, turned waste tires into flower pots and plastic bottles into a large tree, and she put them on the art wall. The special "children's graffiti zone" — any child passing by could add a stroke — on the wall excited the children the most.
The "garbage wall" became a "wall of childlike fun." Mothers in the neighborhood were pleasantly surprised to learn their children no longer walked past the wall after school, but instead ran to the wall. Many of the children even took the initiative to pick up waste and scraps of paper and throw them into trash bins. Why? "Because the wall says 'garbage should go home.'" The transformation of that one wall helped Li realize the most overlooked and "marginal" spaces in a community can hold the greatest potential for child-friendly areas.
Since then, Li's team has produced numerous micro-renewal designs, which can be found in more than 500 old-residential communities in Beijing. Li has proven, through each micro-renovation, that being child-friendly does not require large-scale construction; instead, it only requires a heart willing to "bend down for children."
Child-Friendly, in Every Detail
Li in 2023 created Yumeng Chaoyang Child-Friendly Growth Space, the first child-friendly community facility in Wangjing. The facility, which covers nearly 1,000 square meters, is a growth space that integrates reading, aesthetic education, childcare and parent-child activities.
In the space, all corners have soft, rounded padding, the handrails are just the right thickness for a child's hand to grasp, the sinks are split into two heights, and the lighting is a soft, eye-friendly warm light as opposed to the traditionally harsher cool white.
The space is divided into one large core activity area and nine independent functional zones. The small bookshelves, in the reading area, are only 90 centimeters high, so a 3-year-old can reach all of the books, and the crafts area is equipped with child-safe scissors and washable paints. There is even an "emotion hut," filled with pillows and stress-relief toys, where a frustrated child can be alone to calm down. The nursing room and the parent-child restroom are among the most popular areas with parents, as mothers with infants no longer have to breastfeed or change diapers in a corner of the activity room.
"As the head of a women's social organization, I have always believed women's unique sensitivity and empathy are important forces in advancing child-friendly development," Li explains. "Ninety-five percent of our team members are women, mostly designers and social workers with both professional skills and caring patience. This composition gives us unique strengths in designing child-friendly spaces, and in planning activities."
Li leveraged her team's creativity, and they focused on the needs of families in planning activities in the space. Rejecting didactic activities, they created special events that are both fun and educational. For example, the "Little Organizer" activity uses parent-child collaboration to turn organizing knowledge into fun games, helping children develop good tidying-up habits while relieving parents' childcare pressure. During creative aesthetic activities, the team listens to children's ideas, encourages free creation, and displays the children's works on walls, so every creative idea can be seen and respected.
More than 300 events have been held in the space during the past two-plus years, and those events have served more than 100,000 people. Li hopes to act as a link, by bringing more women into child-friendly development, building diverse growth platforms for women, enabling every woman to realize her own value and achieve her personal growth, while protecting children's growth.
Promising Future
This year marks the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030). The Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China proposed the goals of advancing child-friendly development and creating a social environment that cares for and loves the next generation.
Li has a clear plan for the next five years: No large-scale construction, but rather continuing to "fill in the blanks" — turning forgotten street corners and unused community rooms into micro, child-friendly spaces. She and her team intend to promote the design concept of "seeing the world at one meter of height," translating child-perspective designs into measurable, verifiable standards, continuously improving details, like mother-and-child facilities, soft padding and eyeprotective lighting, so every space truly meets children's needs, and allows children to explore freely, safely and happily.
Moreover, they will summarize their practical experiences at Yumeng Chaoyang Child-Friendly Growth Space, and they will promote the replicable, low-cost, high-impact model in more communities, and in more cities, to inspire others to participate in child-friendly development, and to strive to help create a social environment that cares for and loves the next generation, so every child can grow up healthy.
"In my view, promoting child-friendly development is never a vanity project, nor is it the work of a single department or institution. It is a systemic project that permeates the fabric of the city and runs throughout the whole life cycle," says Li. "It is the shared responsibility of the entire society. Its core is truly standing from the child's perspective, respecting children's needs, and guaranteeing children's rights. It means people are willing to 'bend down for children,' listen to their voices and make positive changes."
This year, Li was named a National March 8th Red-Banner Holder. She believes the honor not only recognizes her personal, years-long dedication to promoting child-friendly development and advancing women and children's causes, but also acknowledges, from all sectors of society, her team's work and carries the hopes of countless children and families.
"This honor, for me, is both encouragement and a responsibility. It reminds me to stay true to my original aspiration of 'designing for society and helping children grow.' I will continue to play a leading role, bring more women into child-friendly development, and protect children's growth with women's strength. I will live up to this honor, strive to make extraordinary achievements in ordinary positions, and contribute to child-friendly development with solid actions," she concludes.
Photos from Interviewee
(Women of China English Monthly June 2026)
Editor: Wang Shasha
