Elsie was among a group from her school which recently did some work at Our City O-Tautahi about how the City Council might improve its understanding of what children want in their city.

Split into pairs, the Opawa School pupils worked on computer-based presentations and on creating a dramatic presentation.

Tommy Davies (12) and Chris Johnstone (9) were working on a simple message.

“When you’re asking us things or talking to us, you don’t need to present it in a friendly, happy way with cartoons and stuff,” Tommy says. “We don’t think kids want to be consulted in a different way. It makes it look like you think we don't really understand things."

Elsie's point was that adults sometimes forget there are stages in childhood and that smaller children can find older children intimidating.

"I'm pretty sure the Council's helping children more than they did a while ago," she says. "Our play's about a new building being put on a park. The kids get their own councillor who understands kids and can help the Council understand what kids want."

Dorothy Haywood, who works for Christchurch City Libraries GlobalNet initiative, says exercises such as this one are designed to encourage children to explore an issue and do something about it.

"They're our citizens of the future and we have to encourage them to be involved," she says. "This particular exercise started because some people thought our Council documents weren't children-friendly, so we looked for a group that might give us some ideas about how we might do that better."