MWhen I was small and playing chasey, some places were ‘bali’. These were safe havens where no one could catch you. It was a widely accepted rule that a patch of ground – or a tree or swing – could be declared ‘bali’ at any time throughout the game. It was one of those simple, black-and-white laws of childhood; the kind that grown-ups spend the rest of their lives craving.

To a child, Cubbies must seem as easy as that: as though this small block of land on the boundaries of the high-rise commission flats in inner-city Fitzroy has, with the help of the eight big people that regularly hang out here, been made ‘bali’ from the outside world.
It’s clear that the kids that spend their time at Cubbies have accepted its boundaries. According to Bernard, one of the supervisors: “the kids grow up knowing that you’re not allowed to fight in here.”

To me, as an adult, it is amazing that such a place still exists. Cubbies is the kind of environment that you would expect tightening health and safety legislation, cuts to government funding and the legacy that was Jeff Kennett to have eradicated. It’s messy and fun and ruled by kids. After spending the afternoon here with Bernard, Celine, Andree and a crew of little people, I want to be ten again.

The yard is kitted out with self-constructed buildings, ducks, an old car, chooks, a flying fox, a rope swing, a fire pit for cook-ups from the vegie patch, and heaps of colourful painting.

Cubbies began around 1973 as a care program for the school holidays that just “kept on going”. It’s now open for kids to come and use at their free will after school, all day on weekends and all day every day during holidays. The crew also organise fishing trips and camps – and hold regular film nights and even an art exhibition.

Cash was hard to come across in the first four or five years, and the place was run with very little income. Cubbies is now federally funded, but was among the first one hundred organisations to lose state government funding under the Kennet regime; which, says Bernard, was something of a compliment – “We were with a lot of good groups.”

The kids that play at Cubbies, most of whom live in the cramped conditions of the commission flats above, have virtual free reign in the yard. The eight supervisors that work here are legally responsible to make a safe environment for the children to be in, but comments Bernard, “being Fitzroy, we’d be hard pushed to create anything as dangerous in here as what’s out there.”

He says that “a lot of parents have a bit of a dilemma because we’re not a child minding service, the children can come and go as they like.” But although legal duty of care stops at the front gate, Bernard and his work-mates obviously feel their responsibility extend far beyond the fence line.

Bernard suggested that, to a degree, staff do become involved in the children’s welfare outside of the playground. “A simple one to work on in [an abusive] sort of situation is a non-emotive thing like providing food. You have children that will be waiting at the front gate at ten o’clock on the weekend and then they’ll leave here at six or seven at night …and they won’t go anywhere to eat during the day. So you supply food, and somewhere that they can sit and have a rest – without having to be out in the street”.

He comments that there are a myriad of reasons that a child might not want to go home – whether that’s because home is abusive or because they just get caught up in their play and don’t realise the time. “I think it’s just about providing an environment where parents feel comfortable that they know where their children are... a lot of the parents are single working parents so… at least they know their children can come in here and that there are adults here who will look after them.”

Each week, up to 60 different kids pass through the place and they are encouraged to create and initiate their own projects. Bernard comments that Cubbies has few hard and fast rules, but that every day involves negotiation: “It’s about trying to create a social conscience I suppose… We actually work quite harmoniously in here and that’s with different age groups and different nationalities.”

From the outside, with the sounds of laughing children and chooks and the overgrown fence line, you could be forgiven for mistaking Cubbies for some sort of hippy commune. Laughingly Bernard tells me: “We get comments from people passing by that we’re anarchists or we’re socialists… it’s quite a funny line to get from people because we’re not doing anything really except letting the kids create what they want to create.”