Championing Play - playing for a brighter future

Learning from and in a Global Pandemic. Save the Children Denmark and the LEGO Foundation launch Championing Play – a new  partnership programme

The global pandemic is still having a devastating impact on children around the world - especially children in societies already affected by poverty, inequities, vulnerabilities, and crises. School closures, lockdowns, and the impingement of numerous basic services in low-resource contexts have kept many children at home for long periods. 

In this reality, play is more important than ever as a way to meaningfully support children’s learning and wellbeing. The evidence around play shows that it is vital in the fight against increased levels of isolation and anxiety and is a crucial way to build children’s development, holistic skills, socio-emotional learning, and resilience. 

That is why Save the Children and the LEGO Foundation with the new programme Championing Play promote play and its positive impact on learning outcomes and wellbeing for some of the most marginalised and hardest to reach children living through COVID-19. 

See this page in Danish

About Championing Play

  • Championing Play will directly reach up to 45,000 children between the ages of 0 – 12 years.
  • The programme takes place in seven countries in Asia and Africa: Jordan, Bangladesh, Uganda, Lebanon, Rwanda, Bhutan and Sierra Leone.
  • This 18-month project will have the combined benefit of reaching children, caregivers, and teachers directly, adding to the evidence base and collective understanding of how to recognize and measure quality play and its outcomes.
  • Children benefits from quality play-based interventions to improve learning, wellbeing, happiness, and resilience. They also benefits from caregivers, parents, and teachers with more skills and understanding of the importance of play in children’s learning, wellbeing and development of holistic skills.
  • We will increase our advocacy for the use of play for learning and wellbeing at home, in school and as part of national and global policies – backed-up by learning and evidence. 
  • The programme supports the promises to children in the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.