Building Life-skills for 150,000 children

Dear Toybank Project Supporters,

Hello from Toybank! We have had an amazing kick-off to the financial year 2017-18, and are eager to see through the milestones we’ve set for ourselves over the following months! We feel very happy to witness the dramatic changes in the lives of the children we have been steadily impacting.

Toybank is focusing on expanding & also deepening its work in the year ahead, and has set a goal of extending our reach to 50,000 children by the year-end. We are putting in committed time this quarter into assessing the impact of our work and therefore curate stronger play programs that fulfil developmental needs in our children.

Over the months of April, May and June, Toybank has conducted 153 play sessions at our centres across Mumbai, reaching out to 3550 ­children in the process. In this time, we have also replaced games and toys at 74 of our Urban and Rural centres, to restock them with new and innovative games and toys. We also catered to our centres in Delhi to maintain the novelty and stimulation of the games contained in our game libraries. The play sessions over this period covered activities that focused on ‘Health & Hygiene’ and ‘Good Habits & Bad Habits’. From one of our centres at Ashadeep, Andheri, children resisted taking to cleaning their community centre because it seemed strenuous. However, the simplicity of this exercise came through at the play session and the discussion that ensued led to a handful of them grouping together and taking up this initiative, which was very motivating to witness.

We also conducted 8 Teachers’ training sessions this quarter thus impacting a total of 134 teachers. These sessions help empower teachers at our partner schools with tools on how to integrate play into their schedules effectively, use of relevant toys and games based on age, theme and category, as well as a Q&A session.
From our visit to our partner Sanskriti Samvardhan Mandal in Nanded, the teachers gave us invaluable feedback during the training session about their needs, and to use play to teach children. ‘Play to Learn’ being our fundamental focus for all our children.

For the first time, we also involved parents of our children in a Play Session at our centre in YUVA, Mumbai. They were amazed by how their children taught them complex and interesting games with such enthusiasm and ease along with a fun tool to spend time and build stronger bonds with their kids through play.

Story from the field:

Gopal (name changed) is a student at one of Toybank’s rural game libraries in the Beed district of Maharashtra. His teachers observed that he was quickly distracted from classroom activities, and found math above all other subjects especially challenging. His teachers expressed that while he was a bright boy, he was often inattentive and exhibited disobedient behavior towards them. Gopal showed little motivation to attend classes, which came across as excuses to his parents for skipping school.

Once Toybank introduced a game library at Gopal’s school, there was a noticeable change in the attitude of Gopal and other students at his school. The games made part of the school’s library we curated to included many strategy and numerical games, including ‘Business’ and ‘Rapid Calculations’. During the first few weeks, Gopal was curious and interested, but struggled with making calculations himself. Initially, his teachers would sit with Gopal throughout the play sessions, assisting him with the game till he got comfortable solving them on his own.

Today, 5 months after play sessions were introduced at the school, Gopal among other students not only has an eager interest to play them week-on-week, but has shown visible progress in his math skills and calculation speed. His teachers have conveyed that regular play at the school has helped them maintain concentration levels and interest to learn new information.

We are confident that through our continued intervention, Gopal and the children at our centre in Beed will grow to enjoy the process of learning through games and play sessions, and stay receptive to the education they receive at school and beyond.

At Toybank, we work with children like Gopal to ensure they develop their skills and knowledge, but also a bounty of joy and happy memories through play and games. We thank you once again for your wonderful contributions that enable us to make this a reality. This ensures that we go one step closer towards ensuring every child in India is given the opportunity to play, and in the process, help in their growth and development!

Warm regards,

Shweta Chari,

Founder and CEO, Toybank

Links:

• Teachers sharing their experiences on the Impact of Play