Local services
At a press conference in the park on April 3rd, 2025, the most exciting programs of the year, the renewal of Sziget-kék, and innovations that make visitor experiences even more colorful were reported.
Deputy Mayor Diána Széles, who participated in the press conference, spoke, among other things, about how Sziget-kék plays a significant role in the lives of families with young children in Debrecen. Children love to come here, and many celebrate their birthdays here.
By creating this thematic playground, the Municipality’s goal was to ensure that Debrecen, as a caring city, would provide free programmes and opportunities for experiences for families and visitors to Debrecen. Considering the basic idea of learning through play, the park’s theme is the fairy tale world of Magda Szabó’s work “Sziget-kék”.
Debrecen Zoo, which operates the playground, is preparing a more prosperous series of programmes on this vital topic this year than ever before. It is also essential to popularise the idea of sustainability, shaping the environmentally conscious thinking of families through children, which is served by a point in the playground for collecting returnable bottles. The redemption of the bottles collected here will serve to finance the expansion of the park’s programmes.
Diána Széles, the Deputy Mayor responsible for tourism, also spoke about the Municipality’s goal to position Debrecen as a tourist destination worth visiting for a long weekend with the family. Such family-friendly investments include the development of the Nagyerdei Strand and the Sziget-kék playground.
The correctness of these efforts is confirmed by the fact that many people, for example, visit Debrecen from Budapest to visit the Sziget-kék with their children. Such is the value of a fantastic playground: In 2023-2024, more than half a million visitors visited it. The high quality and safety of the playground are essential to the city, and improvements are made yearly to ensure this.
Managing Director of Zoo Debrecen, Gergely Sándor Nagy, thanked his colleagues working in their units for their work 365 days a year and for welcoming visitors at the highest possible standard, and also thanked the local government and visitors for their support, a new, community form of which is the offering of returnable bottles. Speaking about the developments, the Managing Director also made special mention of the fact that, to ensure the security of the playground, the recording unit and server room of the surveillance camera system, consisting of a total of 16 cameras, operating 24 hours a day, were also installed in the park area. In addition, the development also resulted in the increasingly significant use of renewable energy sources in the energy consumption of Debrecen Zoo. Regarding the programmes of the Sziget-kék playground, it was announced that this year there will also be events related to the 125th anniversary of the birth of the poet Lőrinc Szabó.
According to Leading Event Organiser Mária Nagy, the playground is now three years old and is a good place to be a child. The safety of the playground, its sophisticated design, the size of the green areas, the year-round opening hours, and the program offerings all contribute to the fact that this facility is used and loved by many age groups.
The programmes serve various interests and cultural needs, with the arts (literature, music, fine arts) and the preservation of writer Magda Szabó’s intellectual legacy in focus. They have rhyme, song, and dance classes for the little ones, drawing lessons, a drawing club, and annual exhibitions for the older ones.
This year, they would like to expand the range of activities with other themes. They are currently planning 35 programme days, to which 35-40 camping days will also be added. Events always accompany the festive elements of the year. These include, for example, the day of birds and trees with a special book presentation and activity.
Significant events include 1-2-3 day long family days. For example, the 3rd birthday of Sziget-kék playground will be celebrated within the framework of a 3-day programme, and of course, they will not forget Magda Szabó’s birthday either. Major events always go hand in hand with literature; at this time, the garden of scents turns into a garden of fairy tales and poems, and storytelling and book reading take place. They consider it a priority to spend children’s free time usefully, and the camps are held in this spirit.
From upper-group kindergarten to primary school age, they await those wishing to camp with a wide range of activities: fairy tales, literature, knowledge dissemination, preservation of traditions, handicraft activities, sports, sciences, and of course, self-forgetting games. Seven camps are planned to be organised this year under the leadership of qualified professionals. Mária Nagy highlighted the “mini scientists” summer camp as a novelty among the camps, which will be a unique experience camp for curious children.
The press conference also mentioned the publication of the special eastern issue of the “Sziget-kék Hírmondó” magazine, which provides a taste of this year’s programmes at the playground.
The website of Sziget-kék is available here: https://szigetkek.eu/
Source and photo credit: debrecen.hu
