Children Rise Above Adversity in Ethiopia, With Support from READ Foundation
Having helped improve children's life outcomes in Tanzania and Lebanon, Right To Play's partnership with READ Foundation is now supporting the psychosocial and learning needs of out-of-school girls and internally displaced children in Ethiopia.
The READing Project is a three-year project that is making a life-changing difference to vulnerable children in Debre Birhan City, in the Amhara region.
The project forms part of a wider project supported by LFC Foundation – the official charity of Liverpool Football Club. Across three years, the project will support 9,500 children, over 200 teachers, and hundreds of community members.
READ Foundation's support is helping to provide urgent comprehensive child protection and psychosocial support to children impacted by crisis in Ethiopia.
In southern Lebanon, children continue to suffer from the trauma arising from conflict and displacement. In addition to impacting their well-being and disrupting their education, conflict and displacement can be incredibly detrimental to children’s cognitive development and put them at risk of developing mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.
To help Lebanese children heal, we’ve provided psychosocial support through play. Right To Play-trained coaches have been delivering music, sport and free-play activities that give children a space to focus on the present, express their emotions, develop life skills, connect with others and help restore a sense of identity and self-worth.
Through the programme, we’ve helped nearly one thousand children build resilience through play.
With READ Foundation’s support, we’ve also been reaching children in the Serengeti and Tarime regions in northern Tanzania. Here, girls face immense obstacles to education and experience the pressures of child marriage and forced labour.
Our programme has helped children – especially girls – overcome barriers to education and stay in school. This has been achieved by training teachers in play-based learning with gender-responsive teaching methods to ensure that the classroom feels like a safe, inclusive and fun place for girls. Our Girls’ Clubs have also been helping build girls’ self-confidence and autonomy, empowering them to resist the pressures to drop out of school because of early pregnancy or marriage.
In Ethiopia, Lebanon, Tanzania and beyond, Right To Play is able to help the most vulnerable children gain resilience, confidence and well-being through the transformative power of play. This essential work would be impossible without the generous support of partners like READ Foundation.
