Play for Good

Hello, I'm Karen and I'm a play advocate serving babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. I've always been amazed by how our mind works that when I came to know that it is the fastest and most complex in the first five years of life, I was immediately drawn to join the early years sector.  I felt that I will make more impact as a preschool educator and cofounder, serving families with young children needing support in early developmental needs.  It has been a humbling experience to witness "the wonder" of learning from my own children right up to the toddlers I worked with in early learning centers.  I was truly inspired to work with children everyday that even though I am unable to right now, I still want to serve these group of children through the toy startup that I'm running.

Having young children of my own, I decided to venture into a social enterprise that not only uses Earth-friendly resources but also curates modular kits that meets the child's growing and learning needs.  Children learn in a play-based environment development-appropriate early learning concepts such as object permanence, recognition of shape, color, and patterns, and competence in culture, community, and ecology.  The modularity of the product means that we repeatedly use a base that reduces our overall impact while being space-efficient.

The space-efficiency opens up the potential for a Toy Library initiative that I'm brewing.  You see, my first official job was a medical representative for a milk brand.  I frequent urban and rural public health centers talking to both medical professionals and new mums about baby nutrition.  I see parents waiting hours for a free vaccine leading to children waiting for their turn without a thing to do.  Fast forward to living in Melbourne once, I noticed that they have play corners with toys in libraries and independent toy libraries where parents borrow toys to rotate at home.   I have never seen anything like this in my home country and I would assume that not many countries would have toy libraries or even libraries.  This means that there is no available play-based learning curriculum nor toys that these children have access to.  With the Toy Library initiative I call Play for Good, we can send multiple space-saving kits that parents can borrow and rotate distributed to health centers, libraries, playgroups, and other baby, toddlers and preschool communities.

My goal is to establish 10 toy libraries that will benefit 10-15 families every 18 months benefiting at least 100 families to start.    This means that I need to produce 100 modular kits that is equivalent to USD$10,000 excluding the shipping fees. Families can keep the modular base for a time, which is the box, and come to the toy library to borrow and rotate the play configurations meeting their child's learning and growing needs.  With its modular capability and heirloom quality wooden features, the toy library can serve 700-1,000 families in 10 years and has the capability to continuously serve their local communities.  That's a thousand children having access to good quality play-based learning during their free play at home.