New TEDx Talk Highlights the Power of Child's Play to Break Cycles of Poverty

Melbourne, Australia, November 13, 2015 (Newswire.com) - In a new TEDx Talk released by TEDxMelbourne this week entitled, “Ending poverty using plastic cups and wooden spoons,” Playground Ideas Founder and CEO Marcus Veerman proposes an unusual intervention to address global poverty: play. 

Over 90% of the world’s children are now attending school. This is, “a incredible opportunity for children to be lifted out of poverty,” says Veerman. But unfortunately, for millions of children in the developing world, school is failing to equip them with the skills they need to thrive. UNESCO estimates that after four years of schooling, 2/3 of children in Sub Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia are failing the minimum benchmarks - things like reading and writing a simple sentence. Veerman calls this, “a colossal loss of human potential.” He goes on to describe the similarities schools across the world with overwhelming failure rates share: overcrowded classrooms, little access to stimulating resources and toys, and a prevalence of rote, memorization based learning. 

"If you want your children to thrive, and if we want the world's children to thrive, we need to invest in them when they're young. We must create time and space for children to play."

Marcus Veerman, Founder and CEO, Playground Ideas

Veerman goes on to cite a study from Jamaica illustrating the powerful potential of play to shape life outcomes for children living in poverty. In the mid 1980s a group of community health workers piloted an randomized trial on a group of developmentally stunted toddlers living in poverty. For two years, these toddlers and their mothers received weekly visits where health workers coached the mothers to to play with their children using simple props like plastic cups and wooden spoons. 

Twenty years later, Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman studied the result this psychosocial stimulation had on the children as adults. The followup study found a substantial effect on labor market outcomes, with the average earnings of participants increased by 42 percent compared to their control group peers. “Can you imagine the difference it would make to the GDP of a country if all children had time and space to play?” Veerman asks.

The Jamaica Study is supported by similar play based early childhood interventions in the U.S. such as the Abecedarian Study and Perry School Project - all of which demonstrated substantial long term benefits from early play-based programs. The interventions resulted in higher earnings, higher high school graduation rates and bachelors degrees and lower rates of incarceration, teen pregnancy, and need for public assistance. 

Veerman is the founder of Playground Ideas, a nonprofit organisation that works to expand access to play globally by equipping communities around the world to build playgrounds using local tools, materials, and skills. Through an open source website with playground building manuals, safety guidelines, and over 150 step-by-step DIY designs, over 900 communities in 72 countries have built play spaces, impacting over 450,000 children. 

By equipping schools with the resources and knowledge to build their own playgrounds, the organisation strives to transform education outcomes for low income schools throughout the developing world. Beyond labor market outcomes, Veerman sites the benefits of play for gaining critical skills for the 21st century like self control, problem solving, creative thinking, and social competence. 

Veerman’s final charge is simple: “If you want your children to thrive, and if we want the world’s children to thrive, we need to invest in them when they’re young. We must create time and space for children to play.”

About Marcus Veerman: Self-described maker, hacker and designer Marcus Veerman is CEO and Founder of Playgroundideas.org, an organisation that supports communities around the world to build playgrounds from local tools, materials, and skills. With a background in primary education, outdoor leadership, and design-build learning, he founded Playground Ideas after spearheading the construction of 40 bespoke playgrounds along the Thai/Burma border.Marcus responded to a wave of interest in international playground building by creating an open source platform to share best practices.

About Playground Ideas: Playground Ideas is an Australian non-profit organisation that equips anyone, anywhere to build a stimulating space for play using only local materials, tools, and skills.