Building Life-skills for 1 million children

Dear supporters

The new year brings us immense hope and energy. Once again I am delighted to provide an updated on the work taking place with Toybank, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have.

The pandemic has and continues to deprive 188 million at-risk Indian children’s happy and safe spaces of learning and play. Toybank has been delivering its hybrid Play2Learn program to 60,000+ children across 12 districts in Maharashtra and 4 states and 1 Union Territory in India. The program guides and supports 13,695 caregivers through 581 support groups.

Throughout 2021, we’ve seen noteworthy resilience in the ways our children tackled hardships and roadblocks to learn and play and the Toyback team continue to review their programmes to make education and self-development accessible in new ways.

Leena Kamble, teacher from ZPPS Lokhandisawargaon, Play2Learn Center in Beed district explains:

“It has helped me bond with them, overcome language difficulties, teach them despite their restlessness, inattentiveness or disinterest in studies. Children may not do something from textbooks but if I ask them to do the same thing through an activity, they readily do it.”

We continue to depend on donations to support our children at Toybank and look forward to having you as our fundraising partners this year. We would also like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude for the faith and backing our supporters have had in our work.

With 2022 here and our rejuvenated spirit to continue our efforts towards making play a reality in the lives of our children, we wish you a safe and resilient 2022!

Seema Sharma

Founder and Trustee, Child Action

Links:

• Visit our Website

• GG_Report_Toybank_January_2022.docx (DOCX)

Play must go on!

Children have been away from blackboards, playing, eating together and chattering during recess, and attending physical education in playgrounds for more than a year-and-a-half!

A July 2021 Harvard report, ‘Persevering through the Pandemic,’ states that 58 percent of parents have witnessed COVID-19 harm their children’s academic development. Just over half of the parents saw a negative impact on their child’s social-emotional development, which can affect the ability to learn, build relationships and manage emotions.

Toybank-Development through Play has continually recognized these losses long before the outbreak of the pandemic. From providing games to a couple of thousands of street kids to setting up Play2Learn Centers impacting over 57,000 kids, Toybank has consistently responded to children’s evolving needs for the past 17 years, even during COVID-19 as our program went digital.

Find out more about the way our support for children is evolving to face the limits of digital divide and virtual learning fatigue from our recent report.

We are grateful for your continued support, please do get in touch if you would like to get more involved!

Warm regards

Seema Sharma

Founder and Trustee

Child Action

• GG_Report_Child_Action_November_2021.docx (DOCX)