Supported by the HUA BANG Prize project funds
Education in emergencies
Equity, access, and diversity
Learning/teaching methods and environments
Social emotional learning
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BRAC Play Labs help children access quality early childhood education in Bangladesh, Uganda, and Tanzania. Each project is tailored to meet the most pressing local education and humanitarian challenges.
90% of the brain’s development happens before age 5, and skills built in those early days can last a lifetime. Research shows that learning through play makes a huge difference when it comes to children’s physical development as well as language, motor, cognitive and social emotional skills.
BRAC works with families marginalized from traditional education systems, through poverty or conflict. In emergency and crisis settings, play-based interventions can help a child heal and build resilience.
Local challenges are best met with local solutions. The BRAC team applies the Play Lab model differently according to the most pressing issues in the region.
For example, in Bangladesh mothers face a lack of affordable childcare, particularly outside city centers. For Uganda, the education system needs support to integrate hundreds of thousands of refugee children. And in Tanzania, three quarters of children aged 0–6 experience poverty, with less than half enrolled in pre-primary education.
BRAC runs 656 Play Lab centers in Bangladesh, Tanzania, and Uganda, engaging around 11,500 children aged 3–5 in play-based learning. The team trains play leaders — typically young local women — in play-based education, engages parents to help create toys from local materials and decorate learning spaces, and enlists experts to design context-specific curricula.
They’ve also brought together community leaders and BRAC University architects to design child-friendly spaces. Low windows make the outdoors easy for little ones to access. Community members help build outside play spaces using low-cost, often recycled materials. And innovative insulating and cooling systems keep children comfortable. BRAC shares the blueprint across communities with advice for adapting to fit different contexts.
In Bangladesh, the project helps local people — generally women — launch daycare businesses, training them in early childhood development and play-based learning. They’re building livelihoods and a sustainable income. For many young mothers employed in garment factories, reliable local daycare offers a lifeline while they work to support their families.
In Uganda, BRAC’s developed a specially designed Humanitarian Play Lab for children in emergency settings. They’re working with 25 government primary schools and 10 Play Labs in refugee settlements — providing practical support and sharing inclusive approaches to play-based learning.
In Tanzania, the team is working with the government to support efforts to offer quality early learning. Play Labs are set up in government schools, helping children aged 3–5 get ready for school. Based on principles of joyful exploration, children build up a foundational knowledge of math and literacy, as well as all-important social and emotional skills.
By the end of 2023, the BRAC team has trained 35 caregivers in Bangladesh to become entrepreneurs through successfully operating their own home-based Play Lab daycare centers. 175–200 children, who participated in play-based learning activities through BRAC’s day care curriculum, showed holistic development.
In Uganda, 35 play labs in government schools and refugee communities were set up, increasing access to learning opportunities for 1,366 children aged 3-5 years old. To keep children learning when schools were closed during Covid-19 lockdowns, BRAC delivered home learning packages, supported play-based learning activities at home on national and community radio, and used SMS and a hotline to support children and their parents.
And in Tanzania, BRAC reached over 2,000 children through the 30 Play Labs established in government schools. The children showed better physical, cognitive, social, and emotional growth than those not enrolled in Play Labs. In May 2023, these Play Labs were handed over to the local government for continued operations and further scale-up potentially.
BRAC also carried out plans to advocate the play-based curriculum in all three countries. They’re engaging the whole community through community awareness events, involving local authorities, parents, and teachers to improve knowledge on children’s development.
BRAC has been able to contribute to early childhood development (ECD) policy reforms in Tanzania with the approval of the national ECD curriculum — and is also working closely with Uganda’s National Curriculum Development Centres to review BRAC’s play-based curriculum for wider uptake.
Play leader leading an activity at a Play Lab in Tanzania
Photo credit: BRAC
Tanzania's Minister of Community Development, Gender, Children and Special Groups visiting a Play Lab
Photo credit: BRAC
Children playing indoors at a Play Lab in Uganda
Photo credit: BRAC
