Learn To Play - Ithute Go Tshameka

08/06/2026

We are proud to share that our Board Chairperson Taazima Kala will be speaking this Wednesday 10th June at the next edition of MaP Talks at Maru-a-P**a School, a thought leadership conversation on service, purpose, and community impact. 💗✨

For those of you in Gaborone, click this link to register: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQjoqnMfLHGsGWvL5WmI8U7y2dgUOHM-cMl_HXAjvk4u53FQ/viewform

You do not want to miss this one. 🌍

08/06/2026

To celebrate International Day of Play, Priyanka Handa Ram will be moderating a session with the Global Schools Forum on reimagining learning through play, and Learn To Play will be sharing our story from Botswana on how play becomes embedded through trust, women's leadership, and community ownership. ✨

Click this link to join us: https://www.globalschoolsforum.org/upcoming-events/celebrating-international-day-of-play-reimagining-learning-through-play-in-an-ai-age

We would love to see you there. ❤️

05/06/2026

This World Environment Day, meet P**a the Raindrop! 💧

P**a means rain in Setswana. It also means blessing. And in a country where water has always been precious, there could not be a more fitting character to teach our children about the water cycle, climate change, and the planet we all share.

Last year, with the support of Theirworld, we prioritised translating and adapting Earth Warriors, a play-based climate change education programme for the Botswana context because children in our communities are not just observers of climate change. They are living inside it. And they deserve the knowledge and love for nature that will make them its fiercest protectors. 🌍🌿

The Earth Warriors programme brings nature-based, hands-on environmental education into our playgroups across the country, giving our Maatla Mamas the tools to teach children about ecosystems, habitats, and the natural world around them.

Happy World Environment Day from our little Earth Warriors! ✨💚

**aTheRaindrop

03/06/2026

This International Day of Yoga, we invite you to begin your morning with mindfulness, presence, and purpose. 🧘💗

Join us on Saturday 20th June at the Yacht Club for a special fundraiser led by , in support of Learn to Play’s mindfulness programs for children and caregivers in underserved communities.

Your ticket includes a beautiful and grounding guided yoga, sound bathing and mindfulness session, as well as entrance into the yacht club.

Your presence helps us bring presence to others. ✨

Spaces are limited - book your ticket now! DM us for tickets or WhatsApp 72929292

We hope to see you there! 🌈

02/06/2026

01/06/2026

Parents are a child's first teacher. But who teaches the parent? 🌈

This Global Day of Parents, we are celebrating the Parent Playbox Wamu and the families across Uganda whose lives it is already changing. In just a few weeks, parents have reported a 55% decrease in stress and a 57% increase in parental self-efficacy.

Play does not just nurture children. It uplifts families. 🌍❤️

Child's i Foundation
The LEGO Foundation
Kids Collab

01/06/2026

Welcome to June of Ngwana wa Afrika. 🌍

On the 16th of June, we mark the International Day of the African Child. This day traces its origins to 1976, when hundreds of students in Soweto took to the streets to protest educational inequality. They marched for the right to learn. In their own language. In dignity. Close to home.

This month, we dedicate our work to every ngwana wa Afrika, every child of Africa. Because the work of early childhood development is not separate from that history. It is a continuation of it. 💗

29/05/2026

This week, spent three days at the Masana wa Afrika conference and came back inspired, challenged, and full of ideas after meaningful, Africa-centred, evidence-backed conversations on early childhood development with experts from across the continent. 🌈

Priyanka moderated a panel on trauma-informed care in early childhood, exploring why it is so critical when working with caregivers and children in vulnerable communities. Our panelists, Celeste Matross from REPSSI, Raymond Schuller from MusicWorks, Nontobeko Khoza from Dlalanathi, and Esther Chunga from Ububele Educational and Psychotherapy Trust, brought depth, honesty, and an unmistakably African lens to a topic that deserves far more space in our sector. What stayed with us most: approach trauma, in children and caregivers alike, with curiosity, not judgement.

Across the three days, sessions touched on government investment in ECD, collaboration over competition, and responsive caregiving. A question from Oscar Kadenge of ECDNet Kenya has not left us: “How are you designing your programmes with both the father and the mother in mind as a team from the get go?” We are already thinking about what it means for programmes like the Parent Playbox.

Highlights included hearing Grace Matlhape from SmartStart, a recent Skoll awardee, speak about quality ECD in informal, low-resource settings, and a genuinely refreshing fireside chat hosted by Bernadette Moffat and Ruth Mapara, where funders created rare and open space for honest dialogue with partners.

Thank you to for bringing this community together. The continent has extraordinary people doing extraordinary things for our youngest citizens. 🌍💗✨

28/05/2026

Last week, Eashwar travelled to Uganda to join our partners at Child’s i Foundation and Logedi from Challenge Works as part of the Parent Playbox Wamu project under the Good Start Challenge. Since the parasocial worker trainings in February, 600 new families across 24 communities are now actively engaged in the programme, and the results are something worth reflecting on.

55% of parents report reduced stress. 57% report increased self-efficacy. And parent after parent shared how their mindset has shifted, and how their relationship with their child has become more nurturing, more loving, and more connected. ✨💗

What also struck us was the parasocial workers themselves. Their dedication, their ownership, and the extraordinary ways they show up for the families in their care. They are the heart of this. And we are building with them, not just through them.

Head to Eashwar’s LinkedIn for his full reflections from Uganda. 🌍💛

26/05/2026

This week, Community Development Officers and Home Economics Officers from across Mahalapye District came together for our Playgroup Quality and Support Workshop — focused on strengthening how community playgroups are supported, monitored, and sustained over time. 🛝

Across the two days, we explored early brain development, play-based learning, child safeguarding, programme quality, and practical systems for scaling access to early childhood education across underserved communities.

What excites us most is that this work is not about building parallel systems. It is about strengthening the capacity, structures, and leadership already within government and communities themselves. 🌍

As Mahalapye District Council expands playgroups into more villages facing major access gaps, this partnership is showing what community-rooted, government-supported scale can look like in practice.