Together for Play is a global movement. By unlocking access to playful learning for children worldwide, we can contribute to their education, holistic development and wellbeing.

Play can become a driver for social and economic progress in every community. Over the past year, we have been growing Together for Play in Brazil, Colombia, Rwanda, and South Africa, implementing a variety of experimental interventions, made up of different tactics and activations.

Our mission is to increase understanding of the importance of learning through play, so that parents and caregivers value and demand more access to high-quality experiences for their children, while activating the societal and political structures that drive systemic change.

Our approach is hyper-local, working in collaboration with local teams. We launched 4-6 interventions in each target country in 2021 to increase distribution of play resources, build capacity and create access to experiences that support children to thrive.

In a world where inequality is broadened and compounded by the mounting pressures of the pandemic, political instability, socio-economic pressure, the climate crisis, and conflict, children are bearing the long-term effects.

The cultural and political contexts between the four geographies that we targeted vary, as do the challenges and needs that the communities in these countries face. While the world faced a global pandemic, Colombia, for example, was experiencing a national political crisis, the effects of which left many feeling overwhelmed and stressed. In this case, we could see how play and playful learning could act as a tool for parents and caregivers to relieve some of that stress with their children, leading to better emotional outcomes.

Play can create a common ground across intersectional challenges, where partners from different sectors, parents and caregivers, and decision-makers can unite around a shared vision to support children, socioemotional well-being and economic mobility.

Together for Play is creating a global communications platform, uniting parents and caregivers, school systems, civil society, and unconventional partners around the importance of playful learning, to support better outcomes for children.

We deployed a variety of tactics, engaging audiences en masse, via media, and at the grassroots level, through deep community engagement, in order to affect systems-level change over time. Co-creation and partnership were at the heart of the creative strategy, to ensure that content, materials and installations were created with and for the communities and audiences they reached.

We incorporated local games and traditions, visual imagery and colors, resonant to the local context and local language to bring Together for Play to life in each geography. Activities included creating safe spaces for children to play in Brazil, producing an original radio drama in Rwanda, and a podcast series with a government ministry in Colombia.

The Together for Play movement model enables us to surface key leverage points in an ecosystem, and test, learn and iterate based on intervention results rooted in three fundamental beliefs:

-Collaboration and coordination among sector and cross-sectoral organisations plays a critical role in driving progress on social issues

-Relatable and meaningful narratives are crucial for shaping social norms and growing public support

-Providing decision makers with political cover to take action is essential to unlock change at scale

To ensure long-term impact and to advance conversations about play as a powerful strategy for child development in different and diverse geographies, we need to build power, knowledge and capacities that are relevant and aligned with the needs and resources of local contexts. Through this approach, we have been able to meet audiences where they are at, creating the foundation and infrastructure for a movement that is relevant and sustainable.

We launched 12 interventions in Brazil, Colombia and Rwanda in 2021, and expanded to South Africa. This included 62 online and offline activities, to raise awareness, engage, and mobilise audiences around play, reaching over 63 million parents and caregivers.

Examples of executions include creating safe public spaces in Brazil to provide support to families in favelas in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, generating mass media interest, and reaching over 120 million people.

In Colombia, we launched toolkits to support educational institutions and parents and caregivers in understanding the role of play in socioemotional wellbeing, and a podcast in partnership with the Ministry of Science, as two examples.

In Rwanda, we launched a robust parent influencer strategy, generating 100 radio mentions; provided training to national media professionals; and launched original media aimed at parents, through national radio and television channels, reaching 12% of the total population of Rwanda.

We have enhanced collaboration within partner and ally ecosystems to promote learning through play and convene on shared visions, working with 58 partners and allies across geographies.

To date, we have connected with 31 decision-makers, who are engaging by requesting more information, showing up and speaking out at events, and incorporating Together for Play messages in their communications.

We reached more than 63 million parents & caregivers in 2021, and engaged 134,000 people through on- and offline channels. In all countries, we are seeing momentum build around the importance of play. We will be using this momentum to continue to grow, and have already launched interventions across all four countries in 2022.

Media salience of learning through play has increased in all countries, as evidenced by a total of 289 earned media stories over the course of the year and content partnerships with major media outlets in all geographies.