Building Life-skills for 150,000 children

Dear Toybank Supporters,

We hope you have had a splendid year so far!
We are steadily wrapping up the financial year 2017-18 and are very proud of how it has gone. It has been a year of wonderful challenges, lots of new findings and most importantly, a year of going in-depth with our work.

Specifically, for the months of December, January and February 2018, Toybank has conducted 397 play sessions at our centers across Mumbai, reaching out to 10,711 children. In these three months, we have also trained 132 Teachers to drive the Power of Play from 16 of our Non-Profit partners.

Through our work, Toybank addresses plenty of subtle areas that are many times overlooked. Situations of gender discrimination, or of children struggling with confidence and anger issues, all these are quietly getting tackled through our Play interventions. We have been documenting these moments of change, and as our team member puts it, “there is something about these moments that keep me going.”

Moments of Change (in the words of our team member from the field):

A Girl and a Bike:

“In our Play Centre, we keep a balance of games which have been stereotyped.
As I was growing up, I never got to play with games which would teach me to make vehicles. I don’t even remember having a toolset. One of the reasons why I fail to understand the electrical wirings in my house or don’t like to hold the saw in my handwork with the wooden bars or even consider making anything which looks remotely like a vehicle is because my brain tells me this is a GUY thing and you don’t KNOW it. As I started seeing the games in the Toybank Play centers, I got more and more conscious of the fact that these biases need to be broken.

At one of our centers, I handed over a Mechanix (a mini engineering building set) to set to a girl. I also assumed that she would return it to me! I had also started planning my spiel for her as to how she should not be having these biases etc. To my absolute surprise, the girl took the set and opened it and quickly started working on it. I told myself – she will not play with it. I kept a close watch on her. Checked almost every 10 minutes. But to my absolute happiness, she kept at it. She kept at it – nothing could distract her, the sound and the chaos that surrounded her did not distract her. She made the bike.

I was so proud of her! I had this immense sense of HOPE, I suppose. I said a SILENT PRAYER …may we keep empowering girls and may we keep getting reassured that there is so much hope around us…that girls can make bikes, that girls can break all the stereotypes …and live a life beyond the boundaries that I have grown up with!”

A simple toy/game or play activity has the power to influence a child in the most impressionable years of their life. In the new fiscal year, we are embarking into a new phase of mining deep into the potential of Play and fine-tuning our intervention; to truly harness the limitless Power of Play.

We are ever so grateful to you for always watching out for us. We hope you continue to back us up as it is only when we all work together can we actually drive permanent & impactful change to the society at large.

With Warm Wishes on behalf of the whole team,

Shweta Chari
Founder - Chief Toybanker

Dear Toybank Project Supporters,

We wish you a Happy 2018! It’s always a pleasure to share our reports on GlobalGiving and know that we have the backing of beautiful people like you who inspire us to keep doing what we do.

When children play, being rich or poor or from a different community becomes immaterial. Just like in our lives, the only thing that truly matters is that we love, respect and cherish each other. It's being good that's important. This goodness is defined by how much we value loving and being loved. When we put aside all that which makes us prejudiced, will we succeed in imparting the same values to children along with focusing on their happiness and wellbeing, ensuring they are secure, well-stimulated with knowledge and right values.

Toybank, registered under The Opentree Foundation, constantly works to provide children with access to healthy play and games to ultimately reach our long-term goal of addressing development needs in children. Specifically, for the months of October and November 2017, Toybank has conducted 246 play sessions at our centres across Mumbai, reaching out to 4451 children. In these two months, we have also conducted Training sessions for 25 Teachers from 3 of our NGO partners. We also distributed toys which address the emotional needs of children, to 2118 children from across 20 of our Play centers.

With a mission to provide Play in the lives of all children, Toybank also conducts sensitization workshops on the Power of Play for parents and young adults. On November 14^th and 16^th, 2017, we sensitized over 4000 employees from 2 very large corporate organizations. This is what one of the senior management members had to say,
“It was amazing to have your (Toybank) team come and share your wonderful work with us. I am so thankful we have started our relationship and I hope it goes from strength to strength. Thank you so much for bringing Toybank to our organisation. We truly appreciate your infectious enthusiasm at the game sessions that left us asking for more! The sessions were a huge success, thanks to the passion with which you drove them. Very inspiring.”

Our annual event, the ‘Toybank Fiesta 2017’ took place on 25^th and 26^th November. It involved sensitization talks, panel discussions, a small exhibition, and even musical performances by children and young upcoming bands. This event saw over 450 individuals from all walks of life come in support of Toybank’s work. It was a very inspiring and motivating moment for Team Toybank.

Story from the Field:

Hari (name changed) is a 7-year old young boy who is a regular at our Play Center in a Government Primary School. Hari lives with his parents in a small village called Surdi. His parents want him to study hard and do well in life. 

Through our play sessions and regular interactions, we noticed that Hari did not enjoy attending school and always felt bored to go because of his disinterest in studies. Because of this attitude, he was scolded by his parents on a daily basis. The constant nagging did not create a positive impact on him and he ended up being late to school every single day. He had poor concentration ability that hindered him from learning well. All the frustration of not performing well somewhere made him introverted and even disrespectful towards his classmates and elders.

Our team immediately started working with more focus on helping Hari out. Our field officer slowly initiated a discussion with Hari, all the while ensuring that Hari is playing with simple board games. We also ensured that he interacted with other children through the play methods by which he could learn to work better in teams and also his confidence in asking more questions and being able to, therefore, speak up. Hari became a champ at playing team based games and this made him realize the value of others and thus respecting them. He is constantly improving and is a regular at all our play sessions.
Hari is much happier, better focused and is now willing to learn and without fear.

At Toybank, we are solving the puzzle, one piece at a time. Just like solving a jigsaw needs strategy — collating color groups, shapes, arranging sections of colors — Toybank has a meticulous method to get us closer to our goal of giving our children a happy childhood through healthy play. Just like the puzzle isn't solved till every single piece is in place, at Toybank, we are putting in all our efforts to make it a complete picture of happy children everywhere.

We sincerely thank you all for the generous contributions and hope that you continue to support us. Do hit the donate button on our Project page to strengthen our foundation furthermore.

With Warm Regards & Best wishes for 2018,

Shweta Chari

Links:

• Media Article on Toybank in May 2017