From 10 to 11 July 2019, IICBA organized a dissemination seminar for the project of ‘Play and Resilience: A China-Africa Collaboration Project for Building a Peaceful and Sustainable Future’, which is approaching its end, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The seminar aimed to discuss the successes and challenges of implementation, scalability and sustainability of some of the project activities, and the way forward. In attendance were 18 participants, including representatives from the Victoria Charitable Trust Fund (VCTF), three project member countries, the Ministry of Education in Ethiopia, UNICEF Ethiopia, Addis Ababa University, and colleagues from UNESCO regional offices and IICBA.

Started in 2017, the World Organization for Early Childhood Education (OMEP) in China and UNESCO co-implemented the Play and Resilience project, with the financial support of VCTF. In Africa, the project was implemented in South Africa, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. IICBA is the main implementing partner but works closely with the UNESCO Regional Offices in Harare and Abuja. The objectives of the project were to enhance young children’s resilience and potential to contribute to a peaceful and sustainable future through awareness-raising tools development, capacity development, and community relationship building.

On the first day, Dr. Binyam Sisay, IICBA Programme Officer and Coordinator of the Project in Africa, presented the progress report for the project implementation in Africa. Afterwards, an introductory presentation was given by Ms. Ruixi Liu and Ms. Anahita Kumar, IICBA Interns, on the ‘Play and Resilience’ toolkit prepared by the project. The toolkit, which was officially launched, incorporates the manuals for teachers, community members and other stakeholders, policy briefs and miscellaneous resources. Following this, three country representatives, Ms. Michaeline Thandiwe Dlodlo, Director of Early Childhood Development of Limpopo Department of Education, South Africa, Mr. Peter Muzawazi, Chief Director of Primary, Secondary and Non-Formal Education, Zimbabwe, and Mr. Kalu Kalu-Obasi, National Coordinator of Education 2030, Federal Ministry of Education, Nigeria, presented their country experiences regarding main activities, outputs, successes and challenges during the two-year implementation.

During the second day, Dr. Maggie Koong, Global Project Director of VCTF, demonstrated OMEP’s work on building resilience through play for left-behind children and migrant children in China. She shared implications from the study and good practices of education intervention in early childhood care and education. Mr. Biniyam Gebereyes from Addis Ababa University also presented the progress and limitations on early childhood development in Ethiopia. This was followed by a group discussion on the scalability and sustainability of project activities.

The seminar was officially concluded with remarks by Dr. Yumiko Yokozeki, Director of IICBA, and Dr. Koong, who also conducted an award ceremony to partners.

IICBA and VCTF will have further discussions on the possibility of initiating a next phase of the project.

A brief introductory video on the toolkit is also available at:

The Toolkit is published and available online at http://www.iicba.unesco.org/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/Play%20%26%20Resilience%28web%29.pdf.

A full report of the dissemination seminar is available at http://www.iicba.unesco.org/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/Play%20and%20Resilience%20Dissemination%20Seminar%20Report%20%28final%29.pdf