Children don’t vote — but local government decisions shape their lives every day. Whether a child has a safe place to play, a park worth walking through, clean water, a registered early learning programme nearby, or a neighbourhood with more libraries than liquor outlets: these are municipal choices.

Metro Lives is a series of public dialogues in South Africa’s metros about the role municipalities can play in creating the conditions in which children and families can thrive. Held in an election year, it’s not an election debate — it’s an election challenge: to put children at the centre of local government planning and decision-making, and to give the public the tools to hold their local leaders to it.