Ten Years of Learning Through Play: The LEGO Foundation and Right To Play

For a decade, Right To Play and the LEGO Foundation have been working together to ensure that children around the world can experience the joy, wonder, and power of learning through play.

Through our partnership, we’ve directly reached seven million children and close to 200,000 teachers in 12 countries in Africa and the Middle East and we’ve developed resources that have reached children in several more countries.

Over that time, we’ve learned a lot about why play is such a powerful tool for supporting children’s learning and well-being, and how we can fully harness that power at different stages of a child’s development. We’ve leveraged those learnings for greater impact and contributed that knowledge to the growing body of evidence that shows how play is a transformational force in a child’s life.

Helping a Generation of Children Learn and Develop through Play

In many places around the world, schools are out of reach for children, destroyed by conflict, made unsafe by climate disasters, or barred by social norms and poverty.

In other places, the classroom is a place that inspires not joy, but fear and boredom. Teachers are taught to use harsh disciplinary measures and to deliver lessons using rote styles of teaching that prioritize memorization over engagement and discovery. Girls are intimidated into silence by gender discrimination. And children with disabilities don’t have the support they need to participate. Children and their education suffer.

For these millions of children, learning through play can be a lifeline.

In Uganda and Tanzania, parents and children living in refugee communities have stronger bonds thanks to the Play to Grow project, which teaches parents how to use play to support children to develop key literacy and socioemotional skills. In the pilot phase, positive parent-child relationships rose from 42% to 69% in Tanzania and from 79% to 84% in Uganda, reflecting transformational changes for families.

Parent educators are keeping the learning going in those communities. The lessons we learned are being applied in Ready to Learn, an integrated play-based program in Adjumani, Uganda, that supports children’s psychosocial well-being through the transition from pre-primary to primary education. It will reach 20,000 children.

Primary school is where students develop many of the foundational learning skills they need to thrive in the classroom and in life. In the Plug in Play program, students in Rwanda had the chance to learn and apply making, tinkering, robotics, and coding skills that are in high demand in today’s workforces. Using an applied teaching and learning style, teachers engaged both girls and boys in STEM lessons and projects. One student, Aime, even placed in a national competition with his project.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when so many children were forced out of school and lost connection with peers and trusted adults, the Build Back Better program supported children in Ethiopia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Uganda to continue learning, and provided psychosocial support sessions that helped them to cope with trauma and isolation. The project reached more than 60,000 children, 3,000 parents, and nearly 1,000 teachers. And the open-source P.O.W.E.R. psychosocial well-being resource has been used in several countries including Ukraine.

Our Reach Together

The Ripple Effect of Investing in Teachers

Through our 10 years of partnership, we have trained teachers and educational officials, enhanced school curriculum, and influenced educational policy to ensure that generations of children will benefit from the power of learning through play.

The Partners in Play (P3) project enhanced the quality of education for girls and boys aged four to 12 in Ghana from 2019-24. In collaboration with the Ministry of Education and its agencies, NGO partners, and community-based organizations, P3 incorporated play-based learning approaches into school curriculum and teaching practices. The project reached more than 16,000 teachers and 600,000 students in more than 2,000 schools. Results showed improvements in foundational literacy, increased student enrollment, and motivation to learn. The cascade training model used in this program ensured that knowledge and skills remained within the education system for the benefit of future generations of students and teachers.

In Rwanda, we launched a Learning Through Play course, the first hybrid teacher certification in play-based learning, in partnership with Rwanda’s Ministry of Education, the University of Rwanda College of Education, the Rwanda Basic Education Board, and the National Examination and School Inspection Authority. The course gave teachers of grades 1 to 3 the practical training and tools they need to use playful approaches in the classroom to boost children’s engagement, learning and development. The program was designed in partnership with PEDAL at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge University Press & Assessment, and the Pedagogy of Play Project from Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. More than 3,300 teachers participated in the pilot phase and made learning fun and playful for 159,000 students nationwide. The course is now being used in Ghana.

In Sierra Leone a technical assistance project improved teaching and learning in pilot schools in Bo and Port Loko District by strengthening the capacity of teachers to integrate play into their lesson plans and enhance the learning experience for 811 learners enrolled in the pilot schools. We also built capacities at the national and school level to carry forward the important work of strengthening play-based learning within foundational learning.

Sustainable Systemic Change

Play is not only effective, it’s low-cost and it’s scalable. The impact that we’ve been able to have on the lives of children has been achieved for only €4 per child. The program participants that we have met over 25 years tell us that the lessons and skills that they have learned in Right To Play programs have helped them in their careers and in their lives, and many are now paying that benefit forward to their communities. Daphine’s story, below, is an example of this long-term change.

The power of our partnership is in the long-term, systemic change that we are creating.

In 2024, we successfully partnered with peer organizations to advocate for a new International Day of Play, which was declared by the U.N. with overwhelming support from member states. This day is raising awareness of the need for investments in play-based learning programs and policies that integrate play into curriculum and teaching practice.

With the LEGO Foundation's support, we have elevated our learnings and impact into two Policy Briefs: Accelerating Foundational Learning Through Play and Promoting Psychosocial Wellbeing Through The Power Of Play.

And in 2024, we participated in the 2024 Africa Foundational Learning Exchange (FLEX) in Kigali, whose Declaration for Action for the first time recognized play-based learning as a critical educational intervention — a milestone for educational policy in Africa.

Thank you!

Thank you to the LEGO Foundation for your ongoing commitment and partnership. We are proud of what we’ve accomplished through our shared vision. We look forward to reaching more children through evidence-based, scalable programs, ensuring that even those in the most difficult circumstances have the opportunity to thrive.