Free Education
CPI’s Programs are Free
ChildsPlay International offers free education to the children in our programs. While we compensate our local partners for delivering CPI’s educational programs, we ensure that the children receive snacks, refreshments, and unrestricted access to all classes.
Holistic education goes beyond the classroom and includes various forms of learning, including formal, informal, and experiential learning. Its ultimate goal is to foster intellectual growth, critical thinking, and the acquisition of skills and knowledge that enable individuals to lead fulfilling and productive lives.
Play-based learning transcends traditional classroom settings by promoting active learning and holistic development. Through play-based learning, individuals of all ages acquire problem-solving skills, enhance creativity, and build social and emotional intelligence. It encourages exploration, experimentation, and the development of critical thinking abilities.
Play-based Learning
Play is not just fun; it’s an educational powerhouse. At ChildsPlay International, we believe in the power of play-based learning. Through activities such as storytelling and art, and soft skills like winning and losing gracefully, children discover their unique capabilities and develop self-confidence and improve literacy.
Children learn the rules of a game and, beyond that, how to make spatial and temporal judgments. They also learn soft skills, like how to win and lose with grace. They learn their own unique capabilities and develop self-confidence. Play serves as a powerful educational tool, offering valuable lessons in a dynamic and engaging manner.
Play-based learning fosters active, holistic development by nurturing problem-solving, creativity, and social-emotional intelligence. It encourages exploration, critical thinking, and joyful learning through activities like puzzles, imaginative role-play, and interactive games, deepening our understanding of the world.
Formerly homeless children in pakistan
CPI has partnered with Huma Jalwat, whose organization teaches the art of painting and drawing to vulnerable, illiterate street children in Peshawar.
Your Donation Goes a Long Way
HIV orphans and Girls at risk of child marriage in Kenya
CPI's Storytelling program in a school where 30% of the children are impacted by HIV and AIDS, many of them orphaned. Young girls who are at risk of child marriage. Our local partner's safe house organizes storytelling sessions for healing and hope.
Empowering girls in haiti
By including girls in our traditional Haitian art program, we challenge gender norms and provide new role models.
Children of Refugees in uganda
CPI’s new Storytelling Program in Northern Uganda, extends support to vulnerable children, including those in refugee settlements, facilitating their healing journey through Storytelling.
healing while learning
Free Education
In Migori Kenya, CPI works with a local community leader and community center to help girls at risk of child marriage share their experiences in a safe environment. Storytelling has proven to be an effective program to help children heal.
Illiteracy is a huge problem in Pakistan, with 40% of the population thought to be illiterate. CPI has partnered with the incredible artist and childcare activist Huma Jalwat. Her organization teaches the art of painting and drawing to vulnerable, illiterate (former) street children in Peshawar. Huma puts a roof over 250 children’s heads and has already held two Storytelling events (read about it here).
CPI’s Programs Around the world
Holistic Education
In Manipur, India, CPI worked with the respected filmmaker, Somi Roy, to capture Manipur’s indigenous games, as part of our Cultural Conservation initiative. The boy is drawing during a Storytelling session.
In Sri Lanka, CPI partnered with Nanda Waninaika, who runs a school and multidisciplinary collective, to reintroduce the children to play, creative activities, and games.
Storytelling is the Oldest Form of Education
Storytelling serves as a powerful medium for sharing experiences. Stories engage our thinking, emotions, and imagination all at once. Narratives serve a purpose beyond literature; they can effectively illustrate even the most intricate and abstract ideas. Incorporating storytelling into education can take various forms, including reading books, and sharing personal experiences. Storytelling holds the key to unlocking the realms of personal imagination and fostering a sense of shared love within local communities. CPI is dedicated to enhancing children’s mental health, education, and overall well-being through the medium of play-based learning. Regardless of whether we refer to it as Mask-making or Storytelling, this endeavor fundamentally constitutes education.
Storytelling for Emotional Healing
Some of our Storytelling partners use CPI’s Storytelling Program to help heal children. Storytelling provides a powerful avenue for children to heal emotionally. Storytelling allows children to explore their experiences, emotions, and perspectives in a safe and supportive environment, ultimately aiding in their recovery and resilience-building.
By bringing together the young and the old, storytelling becomes a catalyst for community building and forging lasting connections.
Empowering Education Through Storytelling
CPI supports an innovative project to preserve the story-telling traditions of Peru’s indigenous cultures.
When Peruvian children draw and paint the stories that they hear, they learn to make visual interpretations of linguistic portrayals, transposing ideas from one medium into another. They learn that interpreting their cultural heritage is a means of preserving culture, even as they make that heritage into a foundation for personal expression.
Of course, these are complex lessons – real cognitive feats – but the children pick up in the midst of having fun. So, while we integrate learning into all our activities, the children never feel pressured (as they might at school). If they feel challenged and have the sense of rising to that challenge, we feel that we have succeeded.
Educating First Generation of Female Mask-makers in Haiti
Mask-making workshop in Haiti offers another example of how CPI promotes education. The children learn a culturally important skill. They learn to work with their hands, and to produce real art from the commonest of materials. They begin to understand that creating an aesthetic object – valued by everyone – is within their own capacity. Such realizations foster a can-do sense that they are themselves valuable, and able to make a contribution to their community. Thus, mask-making demonstrates how acquiring even the most manual skills can have wider (positive!) implications, both for children and for cultures under stress.
Song and Dance
Song and dance, in places like Kenya and Sri Lanka, have produced similar results. As the children learn, they develop a sense of agency. They take charge, becoming spontaneous and, hence, creative. At CPI, we believe that play – and its educational benefits – engage the whole child, allowing the child to grow and develop in ways that will remain beneficial into maturity. Our goal is to promote fun and, with it, a type of education that remains with the child long after the initial fun is just a memory.
CPI’s Programs Around the world
Free Education
In Manipur, India, CPI worked with the respected filmmaker, Somi Roy, to capture Manipur’s indigenous games, as part of our Cultural Conservation initiative. The boy is drawing during a Storytelling session.
In Sri Lanka, CPI partnered with Nanda Waninaika, who runs a school and multidisciplinary collective, to reintroduce the children to play, creative activities, and games.
