Play across generations for social inclusion: training in Leiden

Last week, 20 professionals were trained in Leiden. Together with ISSA, ICDI has developed a toolkit to support practitioners and other stakeholders in the development of skills and competences to create community based play hubs (resource and meeting centres) where relationships between Roma and non-Roma young children and their families are built and interactions in safe play spaces (play hubs) across all generations are supported.

Activities organised 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.

During the 3-day training, participants have been exploring and discussing the following topics:

• Setting the vision for all the children in the local community;
• The importance of community based ECEC and integration of services for inclusion, equity and respect for diversity;
• Toy libraries as community resource hubs;
• All generations learning and playing together (intergenerational learning);
• The importance of desegregated ECEC for Roma and non-Roma children) and anti-bias education;
• Quality in community based ECEC.

The TOY for Inclusion project which 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 multigenerational play spaces in seven European countries: Belgium, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Slovakia and Slovenia. These spaces are located in areas which are reachable for both Roma and non-Roma families, and are designed and run by local committees (called Local Action Teams) composed by representatives of both communities, school and preschool teachers, community development workers and local authorities. Along with activities aimed to help children develop necessary competences and knowledge for formal education, these spaces mobilize local communities around young children, and organise intergenerational activities involving older people with and without a Roma background.

TOY for Inclusion is coordinated by ICDI and funded by DG Justice – European Commission and Open Society Foundations (OSF)