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Last modified on Monday, 18 February 2019 08:49

Humanitarian Play Labs: Helping Rohingya children heal and learn through play Featured

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In August 2017, almost a million Rohingya fled to Bangladesh from violence and persecution in Myanmar. Among them, 55% were children, many of whom were torn from their families, and have seen more violence than most adults would in a lifetime. Research shows that play has the power to heal trauma. So, BRAC has developed a play-based solution called the Humanitarian Play Lab (HPL) model to help refugee children learn and recover from trauma.

On Tuesday (February 5, 2019), the BRAC Institute of Educational Development officially launched the HPL at the Play Summit 2019 held at BRAC CDM in Savar near Dhaka. With the slogan “Play to Heal, Play to Learn,” participants discussed the role of play in the early years of a child’s life, and how this model could be replicated in low resource and humanitarian settings. Mohiuddin Ahamed Talukder, deputy director of the Directorate of Primary Education, and Lesley Patricia Holst, initiatives lead of LEGO Foundation, were present among others.

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“The Humanitarian Play Lab model is a repurposing of the Science of Play for settings troubled by humanitarian crisis. Learning through play portrays children as being empowered and upholds their dignity. It provides them with comfort, happiness and pride as they play with toys, engage in physical play, recite and chant,” said Dr. Erum Mariam, Executive Director of BRAC IED.

HPL caters to children aged 0-6. The spaces have been designed around the memories of home of the Rohingya children. The BRAC IED team, women, adolescents and children have worked together to design the spaces with motifs and paintings significant to Rohingya culture. More than 40,000 Rohingya children have played and learned at the 250 BRAC play labs since 2017.

BRAC has been promoting play as a learning tool since 2015 by developing and implementing the renowned Play Model in active collaboration with the LEGO Foundation. The model incorporates play-based learning in its curriculum and is implemented over 300 play spaces across Dhaka. BRAC’s HPL model is an adaptation of the Play Model developed by LEGO Foundation.

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