Toybank

Toybank is an organisation that aims to promote the mental well-being and healthy socio-emotional growth of at-risk children in both urban and rural India. The organisation is involved in promoting morally correct educational games and play by engaging at risk children.

We have worked closely with Toybank over the past year, interacting with the children this organisation works with to help them develop their fundamental skills critical to their learning through games as a medium. We helped in several different aspects of Toybank including Play2Learn, storytelling, fundraising, buddy program, and social media. The concept of the Play2Learn kit videos was one in which we created simple tutorials explaining interesting games to the children. The final videos were distributed to help the children understand how to play the games and generate enthusiasm in them. Through storytelling, we taught the children about the different challenges in life, ways to overcome them, and the lessons they could learn from them. This was very powerful because we hoped that they could incorporate these lessons in their daily life. Toybank also has a buddy program where we interacted with the children as a ‘buddy’ to develop a relationship with them. We were also involved in social media and fundraising where we raised awareness on different social media platforms about Toybank’s work and raised funds through planned events and donations.

Working with Toybank for almost a year has been a very fulfilling experience; playing games with at risk children left us sensitized to the various issues that children from these backgrounds experience in our own localities. Collaborating with Toybank was an extremely enriching experience because what it did was it taught us collaboration with a group of people with different skills to bring the best of each one of us together with a common goal of helping children who need it. Each game, while deceptively simple, had the unique ability to teach children useful academic and social skills, develop healthy communication, both ours and theirs, all the while using the medium of games – one of the most fun filled ways to learn!

The experience of working as a part of Toybank was one of a kind because we were given the opportunity to have a meaningful impact on the lives of these children. At the same time, this experience taught us so much in terms of creativity, communication, collaboration, and organisation. Through the simple medium of games, Toybank touches many lives.

Nidaa Kagalwalla