South Africa
Towards sustainable, systemic change in South Africa
The LEGO Foundation’s first large-scale project was initiated in South Africa in 2008 in the Atteridgeville township near Johannesburg. Here teachers from 25 primary schools were trained in hands-on, minds-on teaching and using playful, creative tools with some 45,000 students aged 5–12. We are now building on the experience from this project, and have made South Africa one of the LEGO Foundation’s geographic priorities.
The LEGO Foundation aims to create sustainable, systemic impact in South Africa by changing mindsets and behaviours around the importance of learning through play. We have teamed up with a number of organisations to achieve this. Together we seek to reach and influence stakeholders who impact children’s development and learning, including governments, schools, teachers, caregivers and parents.
Through our partnerships and projects, we work at the national level and also to implement local projects that ensure play is an integral part of how children aged 3–9+ across South Africa develop and learn. The majority of our local projects are currently based in the provinces of Gauteng, the Eastern Cape, the Western Cape and KwaZulu Natal.
Case studies
LEGO® play materials: Adding colour to playtime
Colour identification is one way that LEGO DUPLO bricks are being used as a teaching tool by teachers at this light-filled sanctuary that lies in the middle of the noisy, energetic township of Diepsloot north of Johannesburg.
Breaking the poverty cycle through early learning and play
The Kids for Success Centre in the city of Kimberly is one of the ECD centres which received LEGO® play materials and practitioner training from the LEGO Foundation in connection with the #TowerOfImagination campaign.
LEGO® play materials helping join young hands together
For children in low resourced communities, LEGO® play materials provide a unique combination of both fun and learning. Read this case story from an ECD centre in the Limpopo province, which received a donation from the LEGO Foundation in connection with the #TowerOfImagination campaign.
UNICEF
The partnership with UNICEF promotes quality early learning through play for children around the world.
In South Africa, we specifically focus on ensuring that play is an integral part of government policies, ECD curricula and programmes. By working with the South African government to change policies and programmes, the partnership has the potential to benefit millions of children under 10 who will receive support and care from parents, caregivers and educators who have been taught to understand and use play as a tool for stimulation and learning.
Care for Education
Care for Education is the LEGO Foundation’s long-term implementation partner in South Africa. Care for Education is responsible for distributing LEGO play materials to children and schools-in-need, training teachers and practitioners to maximise use of the materials, developing play-based tools and curricula, and providing continued support for the Atteridgeville township.
Care for Education also runs a township robotics project in Atteridgeville, which enables children aged 11-16 to explore science and technology first hand.
Through its work, Care for Education reaches some 80,000 children and trains an average of 1,200 educators and practitioners and 300 organisations every year.
Sesame Workshop
The LEGO Foundation has teamed up with Sesame Workshop to train caregivers to understand and adopt learning through play, and to add hands-on play materials to the Takalani Sesame outreach kits currently used in schools in the Eastern Cape.
The kits and teacher-training tools, expected to reach 60,000 children and 6,000 caregivers, encourage play-based learning using LEGO® DUPLO® bricks to foster skills related to counting, spatial relationships, working memory, colour and shape recognition, and more.
Smart Start
The LEGO Foundation is one of the funders behind Smart Start, a social franchise set out to provide quality early learning experiences to the poorest 3 and 4 year olds to support their well-being and enable them to succeed in school and in life. The aim is to provide quality early stimulation and learning to one million young children annually by 2026.
Training and Resources in Early Education
With support from the LEGO Foundation, TREE (Training and Resources in Early Education) will create a post training mentoring support programme, targeting recently qualified ECD practitioners.
The programme aims to improve the practitioners’ knowledge, skills and practical application of learning through play. The partnership also involves several advocacy activities around ECD in South Africa.
The partnership builds on a recent collaboration around a research project in which TREE experienced how the Six Bricks tool and the learning through play methodology changed the mindsets and practice of both trainers and practitioners.
