Holistic education is not found just in books. Children also need access to a stimulating environment where they get to play, interact with others and develop their knowledge. To that end, iPartner is creating 10 recreational safe spaces from recycled material in government schools using design and maintenance help from the local youth. Such spaces help children to express themselves more openly and have a direct relation to increased enrolment while keeping them safe from violence and abuse.
Children born in poverty, and lack basic resources have fewer chances of finishing secondary school. In areas where iPartner works, the literacy rate is as low as 45% and is also infamous for trafficking children for commercial sex work. The problem is further compounded as these children face emotional abuse, domestic violence, and early child marriage, which act together to force the child out of school. Most schools also fail to provide any motivational advantage for children to stay back.
The Safe Play Spaces are designed to ensure that younger children (boys and girls) are motivated to come to school, and it also motivates others within the peer group to enrol. Principals of these schools have also realized the power of play spaces in increasing enrolments, and are extremely keen to install these play stations in their schools as they report increased enrolments. The different play tools make the school premises bright and motivating. We aim to create 10 such safe play spaces.
With easy maintenance and local youth trained in its installation, the play stations will become a norm in school, and while enrollment is just the first phase of motivation in the long run it will lead to holistic development focused on the physical and emotional well-being of children. This would also act as a space, where children get to meet, strategize and express themselves, helping them broaden their horizons. The longer children stay in school, they are prevented from being trafficked.
