Childhood is a crucial stage for building cognitive, social, emotional, and physical skills, yet millions of children face disrupted learning and development due to crises, instability, and displacement. Play-based learning offers a powerful pathway to support growth, healing, and resilience, but many children lack safe spaces and opportunities to play. Climate change has intensified displacement, affecting 3 million children in the past six years and depriving them of nurturing care and supportive environments.
Play Learn Thrive, led by Grand Challenges Canada in partnership with the LEGO Foundation, invests in innovative approaches to strengthen learning and wellbeing for children and caregivers in crisis settings. The initiative supports displaced and vulnerable communities in Jordan, Lebanon, Uganda, and Kenya, ensuring that children’s educational and developmental needs are met through play-based solutions even in emergencies.
In Lebanon and Jordan, overlapping crises have strained education systems, leaving refugee children with limited access to quality schooling and safe play spaces. Projects such as Project Asobi in Amman use origami and storytelling to foster early learning, while the Safe Play and Learning Hub in Zaatari refugee camp creates structured environments for literacy, numeracy, and emotional resilience. In Lebanon, mobile classrooms like the Play, Learn & Heal Bus bring education and psychosocial support to conflict-affected villages, while initiatives such as SPARK-PY and STEMPlay empower Palestinian refugee children and youth through STEAM learning, sports, and community leadership.
In Kenya and Uganda, where large refugee populations face poverty and limited access to inclusive education, play-based innovations are creating culturally relevant learning opportunities. In Kenya, Sense International’s program supports children with deafblindness through inclusive play-based education and tactile learning tools. In Uganda, Windle International’s Playful Learning Toolkit integrates local culture into early childhood education in refugee settlements, while caregiver networks strengthen community-based support for children’s language and social-emotional development.
Together, these innovations demonstrate that play is far more than recreation—it is a foundation for learning, healing, and long-term development. By investing in play-based approaches, Play Learn Thrive is helping children in some of the world’s most complex crisis settings to learn, grow, and thrive despite the challenges they face.
