Community Upliftment Through Learning To Play

By Lorraine Kinnear

The role of a parent or caregiver is to excite a boundless sense of curiosity about life in their child so they approach life with an excitement bagged with awe and inquisitiveness. Through a plethora of tools and resources, Learn to Play creates an environment of creativity and wonder in children while empowering mothers to help shape them for success.

Learn To Play (LTP) is an international initiative and a leader in global Early Childhood Development (ECD). It was founded in 2017 to inform holistic, community-based solutions across the world. Over the last two years, Learn To Play has been featured on HundrED's 100 most impactful and scalable global education innovations and is one of the 12 most impactful parental engagement programmes. The program is built on sustainable development principles of empowering young minds from the grassroots.

The Founder and Chief Energy Officer of Learn To Play, Priyanka Handa Ram, shares how she began the Learn To Play, 'Ithute Go Tshameka', (translated into the Setswana language)

social impact business and how it will transform society. She holds a Master's Degree in Social Psychology and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education. Before starting the Learn To Play program, Ram worked in inner-city London schools, learning the importance of play and well-being for children, families, and communities. This was the substratum of her current work as she firmly believes that play should be the foundation for early learning as this is the best way to thrive in those years.

Speaking on the impact of her initiative since its inception, Priyanka said by scaling up what they have established at LTP they will have a life-changing influence on the lives of children, families, and communities across Botswana.

TRC: What inspired the idea of Learn To Play? PHR: Two main things inspired the conception of Learn To Play; the first one is my role as a mother of two wild and wonderful children, and the second is my journey as a Motswana educator. I am proud to live, work and raise my family in beautiful Botswana, a country of incredible nature, people, culture, and community. There is nothing I love more than connecting women and children through the universal language of play. It is powerful and transformative, and yet I've seen first-hand that it is not an accessible option for many families in our country. It is my mission to change this. In line with this, Learn To Play was founded with the vision to create a play-centred cycle of transformation for children, families, and communities.

TRC: How does Learn To Play work? PHR: Our program is focused on play not profit; we approach early childhood development at a child, caregiver, and community level. While children are our core focus, we work with caregivers through parenting programs and advocacy with community leaders. Our primary solution is the Rainbow Play Approach, a unique framework for holistic ECD, which is done through playgroups for children aged 2-5, and we offer children a daily nutritious snack and a platform for curiosity and creativity. The second is a Positive Parenting approach done through caregiver group sessions, home visits, mobile mentoring, and play packs for children aged 0-5.

Both programs utilise an untapped resource as the change agent; mothers or 'Mamapreneurs.' The Mamapreneurs are trained to establish community-initiated playgroups and deliver the parenting programme to improve children's holistic development through the Nurturing Care Framework. For this, recyclable and reusable materials, and natural materials from their local environment, are used to develop all the play and learning resources throughout the programs.

Resources and people-power are readily available, and the playgroup can be delivered, scaled & sustained at a low cost. Each community receives a 'Playgroup in a Box' containing everything that a team of Mamapreneurs

needs to run their playgroup. This tool is furnished with a daily activity guide with culturally relevant play and mindfulness activities. To ensure sustainability, all resources and tools are provided with a low-cost resource development guide and other learning tools.

TRC: Who are the beneficiaries of Learn To Play? PHR: Learn To Play's programs directly address women, parents, and children in the communities. However, by acting in a systems change model, LTP is actively demonstrating the value of ECD in a society where it is not yet seen as a necessity. Learn To Play's holistic approach to education is uplifting parents, children, and the larger community and thus creating safe spaces for children, uplifting the local economy within communities and empowering leaders who prioritise family well-being. The program operates in 5 districts and villages across Botswana, including Dukwi Refugee Camp, and will soon be expanding into other parts of Africa.

TRC: What impact has the program had since its inception? PHR: To date, Learn To Play has impacted the lives of more than 800 children, trained 40 Mamapreneurs to start their playgroups, and works in 6 communities across Botswana. We have shared our model in global conferences, trained 80 teachers in Malawi and we are now scaling to impact 9000 lives over the next 12 months. Through this program we co-create with the community by engaging in focus group discussions with all relevant stakeholders within a community before we begin our work. We start with parents and children who help shape our cultural understanding and adapt our frameworks to their specific context, thereby celebrating the local environment for ownership, success, and buy-in.

Learn To Play has been welcomed and received positive feedback from community leaders, elders, parents, and Mamapreneurs in the communities it operates. Furthermore, our continually iterative approach to our work means that we have ongoing discussions with community stakeholders to see how we can improve our programs to benefit the communities to a large extent. We have a long record of testimonials from the various stakeholders we serve, which have been a testament to the fact that play is a powerful tool that can be used to steer future leaders in the direction of change, meaningful impact, and solution-driven thinking.

TRC: Please highlight some of the impactful programs? PHR: Our parenting programme, Gola Nnana Gola, based on World Vision's Go Baby Go, has helped entire families move from despair to dignity and transform their fear into joy. Our social impact model that harnesses paid early learning to help fund free early learning means we prioritise hand-ups not hand-outs, and turn our worries to wonder with a solution-focused approach. Our Board of Directors and my incredible team are the driving force behind Learn To Play, but our secret to success honestly is the communities we work with, especially our Mamapreneurs. They deliver our playgroup model and work in the most nurturing way with young children in their communities.

TRC: What are your plans for the future? PHR: 2022 is an exciting time for us as it marks our fifth anniversary, and we have big audacious goals to celebrate how far we've come and how far we want to go. We are expanding the boundaries of our playground to build brighter futures across Botswana and beyond. In collaboration with our partners we strive to impact 9000 lives in the next 12 months. More than 200 million children under the age of five fail to achieve their potential due to disadvantaged backgrounds, poor health, nutrition, and lack of early care and stimulation. We are committed to making quality early childhood education a right, not a luxury, and to do this, we are offering our training, curriculum, and playgroup model to implementing partners globally. We are focused on mindful play, sustainable approaches, uplifting women's economic opportunities, and prioritising access to ECD in refugee camps and other low-resourced communities on the margins.