A TOY A WEEK!

Toys are essential for holistic cognitive stimulation.  However socioeconomically disadvantaged families can seldom afford to buy toys for their young children.  Even if they are able to buy a toy, the variety of toys available to the child is usually limited.  The SIP community based programme addresses this need through the Mobile Toy Library.  Every Saturday the SIP team goes with boxes of toys out into the surrounding villages and settlements where construction labourers are housed.  Young children, their brothers and sisters (sometimes even their parents and grandparents!), come to borrow toys of their choice.  They keep the toy for a week and exchange it for another toy the following week.  This programme was initiated in 2012 and has continued as a success. 

TOY DONATIONS

Families from more priveleged backgrounds are usually at a loss as to what they should do with the toys their children have grown tired of.  Most of the toys in our Toy Library are donations from such families. The first attempt was a success!  So we put out a request on Facebook for people to donate used toys!  That too received a few responses that went beyond clicking on "like"! 

Now we have a regular stream of used toys being given to Promise.  And every week a not-so-priveleged child can take it home!  Today we receive donations like this from all over the country! 

In this way, Promise has entered the life of the child and involved the entire community.

Communities such as those described above, present new challenges for early childhood education.  While access to pre-schools is much improved, many of these are of low quality, and parents are not yet aware of what their child may be missing.  In the guise of being "low-fee-charging" schools, they attract enrollments but in effect provide poor early childhood care. 

It is our attempt to innovate and meet these challenges always keeping the child at the centre of efforts.

 



Even grandmothers line up to carry toys home for their grandchildren!

TOY MAKING WORKSHOP

To further encourage community involvement in the Mobile Toy Library initiative we extended the programme to older children in the nearby government schools.  These are primary school children who receive inputs on literacy development as a part of our PAL initative.  Outputs from their activity based literacy training become toys for the younger, pre-school aged children! 

At present nearly 50 students (the majority were girls, but boys participate too!), are involved in this multipronged effort!