Protest through Play: The Come Play with Me project in Ethiopia

• In Event: Integrated approaches to ECD

Proposal

For Friedrich Froebel, Play, is the highest expression of human development in childhood, for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child’s soul. On the other side fewer opportunities for playful interactions with children, impact their development outcomes, including their social and emotional skill development and overall physical well-being.
ChildFund had been implementing a 12-month project in-partnership with the LEGO Foundation, to support children and their caregivers in communities already affected by low access to early childhood development and education opportunities, by empowering parents/caregivers to support their children’s learning and overall development and engaging them in playful parenting activities. In addition to Ethiopia, the project had also been carried out in three other countries – Brazil, Honduras, and Uganda. In Ethiopia, this Come Play with Me project was being implemented by working with ChildFund Ethiopia’s 13 local implementing partners in Addis Ababa city administration, and Amhara, Oromia, and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Regions. The main activities of the project included:

Adaptation, production, and broadcasting of 25 radio spots on Early Childhood Development and Playful Parenting activities
An original set of 25 radio spots on playful parenting had been developed and utilized in Guatemala and for the context of Ethiopia, these were contextualized and produced into 4 local languages: Afaan Oromoo, Amharic, Gedeo, and Kistanigna and were then broadcasted across 7 radio stations across Ethiopia. The rigorous contextualization process included the engagement of media firms, specializing in the respective local languages and mother tongues of the local community, to translate the scripts, and adapt the content. Furthermore, the adaptation and production stage included the participation of the local implementing partners and government stakeholders such as district culture and tourism offices, who provided reviews and feedback on the translations and draft radio spots. The radio production firms then liaised with 7 local radio stations, having highest listenership, to broadcast the 25 radio spots. It is estimated that more than 1 million population residing at the four regions have been reached though the broadcasted radio messages.

Listenership sessions
A key implementation modality of the project was the use of listenership sessions, whereby a group of 20 – 30 parent groups met on a weekly basis to listen to the recordings of the 25 radio spots via mobile speakers. During these weekly listenership sessions, trained community facilitators also support parents to conduct brief discussions based on the weekly scheduled radio spots. At the end of each of the listenership sessions, parents are provided with take home, picture-based flashcards which are aligned with the radio spot of the week, so that they are reminded about the key messages of the radio spots and for them to practice playful activities with their children at their homes. During their upcoming weekly session, parents then share their experiences on conducting playful activities with their children during the week before. As a result of the listenership sessions more than 11,000 parents/caregivers were directly reached (188% of the initial reach planned), who reported conducting playful activities with more than 24,000 children (485% of the initial reach planned) at their home and neighbourhoods. Furthermore, more than 380 project officers and community facilitators were trained on this implementation modality.

Project adaptation to emerging needs
There has been a huge influx of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), especially at one of ChildFund Ethiopia’s project implementation areas of Debre Berhan city administration at the Amhara region. The project incorporated interventions which exemplified an understanding of the differing context of parents/caregivers, such as the those affected by conflicts and were forced to leave their hometowns. Thus, in addition to employing the playful parenting interventions, the project was adapted to include the needs of IDPs by providing core relief items and COVID-19 preventive materials. Additionally, five child-friendly spaces at the IDP camps were renovated, which provided early childhood development services to the children and were also venues for conducting the listenership sessions. As a result of these interventions, around 4000 IDPs were reached.

Advocacy and sustainability
The project was launched by convening high-level government officials (State Minister of Ministry of Women and Social Affairs and respective regional counterparts), local implementing partner managers, and the media. The event highlighted the importance on playful parenting, by especially utilizing radio messaging as one of the tools. Following-up on this engagement, a series of workshops at the respective project implementation areas were conducted with participants from the local government, media, and other community-based organizations. At these workshops, the various stakeholders developed joint action plans to sustain the activities of the project. As a result of the various commitments, more than 14,000 children and 5,000 parents/caregivers were directly reached. The local implementing partners also contributed around USD 20,000 to further sustain activities of the project.

Lessons learnt
Future and similar interventions of engaging parents/caregivers and utilizing ‘the highest expression of human development’ should thus build upon these lessons from this project by: 1 – Strengthening not only radio-based interventions but also innovative, in-person sessions such as the listenership sessions, whereby utilizing hybrid modalities and reaching parents/caregivers through diverse channels; 2 – Strengthened contextualization of communication materials and products, not just in-terms of language translations but also thorough, in-depth adaptations to include community norms, beliefs, culture, knowledge, etc. in-support of playful parenting practices; 3 – assessing and understanding the diverse status and contexts of parents/caregivers located and living at various physical, social, and economical contexts; 4 – employing a mix of bottom-up and top-down advocacy engagements to ascertain both ownership at local contexts and policy interventions at national levels; 5 – designing independent media monitoring plans, in collaboration with key stakeholders in the communication sector to ascertain wider reach, listenership, and validation; and 6 – strengthened implementation of projects through diverse local partners to ascertain wider reach, ownership, and sustainability.
As a result, it is hoped that, like the 24,000 children in Ethiopia who were able to express their innermost needs through Play, so many more can also be reached.

Authors

• Natan Tilahun Mulat, ChildFund Ethiopia

• Michael Tesfaye Gebremichael, ChildFund Ethiopia