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TOY for Inclusion wins LLLAwards 2018 for best learning environment

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We are delighted to announce that our project TOY for Inclusion will receive the Lifelong Learning Awards 2018 next Monday, December 3rd!  The prize is awarded by the Lifelong Learning Platform to initiatives that set up creative and inclusive practices.

This year’s edition will focus on the LLLPlatform’s theme of the year, “Lifelong Learning Culture: A partnership for rethinking education”.

The jury has picked 3 winners, one for each of the three categories. TOY for Inclusion has received the highest score in the category ‘Learning Environments’. The prize was assigned by an exceptional jury.

We share the pride and the joy with our international partners the International Step-by-Step Association (ISSA) and the International Child Development Initiatives (ICDI); and with seven members of REYN: Educational Research Institute – ERI (Slovenia), Open Academy Step by Step – OASS (Croatia), Centre for Education Initiatives – CEI (Latvia), Wide Open School – WOS (Slovakia), Centre for Innovation in the Early Years – VBJK (Belgium), Associazione 21 Luglio (Italy) and Partners Hungary Foundation.

For more, follow the hashtag #toy4inclusion or the REYN Twitter and Facebook.

TOY toolkit: playing across generations and cultures

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TOY for Inclusion has developed a toolkit to support practitioners and other stakeholders in learning how to create community-based play hubs (resource and meeting centers) where relationships between Roma and non-Roma families and playing across all generations is supported.

Activities organized in the play hubs involve young children of all backgrounds, their families and older adults and will be implemented in 7 European countries in the framework of the TOY for Inclusion project: Belgium, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Last week, 20 practitioners have successfully attended the training and learned new competences about:

  • How to set the vision for the children in their local community;
  • The importance of community-based early childhood education and care (ECEC) and integration of services for inclusion, equity and respect for diversity;
  • Toy libraries as community resource hubs;
  • Intergenerational learning (all generations learning and playing together);
  • The importance of desegregated ECEC for Roma and non-Roma children and non-biased education;
  • Quality in community-based ECEC.

The TOY for Inclusion project aims to improve the transition experience of Roma young children from home to preschools and schools by offering an innovative response to discrimination of Romani communities.

TOY for Inclusion is creating non-segregated intergenerational play spaces in the mentioned countries. These spaces are located in areas that are reachable for both Roma and non-Roma families. They are designed and run by local committees composed by representatives of both communities (called Local Action Teams), school and preschool teachers, community development workers and local authorities.

Along with activities aimed to help children develop competences and knowledge for formal education, these spaces mobilize local communities around young children, and organize intergenerational activities involving older people with and without a Roma background.

TOY for Inclusion is funded by the European Commission and Open Society Foundations (OSF). Read more here.