What's New

• The Power of a Refugee Child’s Imagination

  Right To Play works to help refugee children access the healing power of art so they can reclaim their childhood and its promise. This World Refugee Day, take a moment to learn about how we are supporting refugee children to use their imagination to express their hopes for a brighter future.

• Promoting Sexual and Reproductive Rights for Young Adults

  In Partnership with FAWE and WaterAid, and technical support from FHI 360, we are launching the SHARE project to support sexual and reproductive health and rights for adolescent youth in Ghana, Mozambique, and Uganda.

• Right To Play to increase access to quality education for close to 40,000 internally displaced children in Mali

  At a time when the worldwide number of refugees and internally displaced persons is at an 80-year high, Right To Play is renewing its longstanding commitment to refugee education with the launch of a new program that will increase access to quality, play-based education to close to 40,000 internally displaced children in Mali.

• Building a Foundation for Literacy

  School closures in Mozambique threatened to set back children's educational progress. While schools were closed, literacy clubs helped them practice reading safely and regularly. Now that schools have reopened, the clubs help children build on lessons and strengthen their academic skills as they catch up for lost time.

• How Saving a Seat Helps a Girl Claim Her Future

  Every girl should have a bright future. An education that empowers her is the start of that future. But around the world, girls are facing tough challenges to claiming the futures they deserve. This International Women’s Day, we are inviting you to learn about and celebrate some of the young women Right To Play has supported as they overcame incredible challenges to claim a brighter future for themselves, their families, and their communities.

• A Child’s Voice Can Save a Life: WASH Clubs in Uganda

  In Uganda, we're using games to teach children learn how to properly wash their hands and prevent the spread of infection, forming local clubs that engage the country's most vulnerable children.

• Small Hands, Big Dreams

  In July 2021, more than 500 children from vulnerable communities in the Palestinian Territories attended a Right To Play-lead summer camp with activities designed to help them cope with and heal from trauma. The summer camp is part of the TOGETHER program, which was made possible with the financial support of the Government of Canada provided through Global Affairs Canada and implemented in partnership with UNRWA.

• Help children get back to learning

  Millions of children are out of school, kept from their right to an education because of their gender, their ability, or where they live. Play can help bridge the gap. We’re using play to make learning fun so children can get back to school, catch up on their studies, and thrive.

• Every Seat Counts

  11 million girls around the world may never return to school after the pandemic is over, putting them at much greater risk of harmful practices like child marriage, early pregnancy and female genital mutilation. With #SaveHerSeat, Right To Play aims to save 50,000 school seats around the world, so girls can return to their classrooms and claim their rights and their futures.

• Empowering Girls Through Sport and Play in Senegal

  Superstar footballer Sadio Mané provides an assist as Global Ambassador to Right To Play, working to increase gender equity in Senegal by using the power of sport and play to help girls achieve their dreams.

• Keeping children learning and mentally strong

  Important new funding from the LEGO Foundation will support Right To Play’s COVID-19 response and recovery, to help ensure children continue to have access to high quality education that is safe, active, and engaging.

• CHILDREN’S MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS

  We use the power of play to help the world’s most marginalized children stay mentally strong and become more emotionally resilient. Playing helps children recognize and express their emotions, overcome feelings of isolation and develop positive relationships.

• 2020 Annual Report

  2020 was a year of significant milestones and challenges, from celebrating 20 years of protecting, educating, and empowering children to rise above adversity through the power of play, to adapting to the harsh realities of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is our year in review.

• From Struggle and Survival to Success for Refugee Children

  For 33 million children around the world fleeing war, natural disasters, famines, or epidemics, everyday acts of childhood like packing a backpack or running outside are instead acts of survival and struggle. But you can change their story.

• Honouring the Children of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School

  We are devastated at the recent news of the discovery of 215 First Nations children's bodies that were found buried at a former Kamloops Indian Residential School last week. As an ally organization, Right To Play stands in solidarity with the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation and all other Indigenous communities in Canada.

• Palestinian Territories Emergency Appeal

  Children have been killed and schools damaged during the recent conflict in the Palestinian Territories. Donate today to help extremely vulnerable children recover from trauma and get back to school.

• P.O.W.E.R.: Games for Child Development and Learning

  The Play Opportunities for Wellness and Education Resource (P.O.W.E.R.) is a collection of 100 gender-responsive play-based learning activities created to support parents, teachers, and others to promote children's learning and development.

• Celebrating the Power of Sport

  Sport is more than a crowded arena, an ace, a goal, or a buzzer-beater. It’s helping to overcome trauma and heal from the realities of war. It’s giving a strong voice to those that were rarely heard before. It’s promoting health and preventing disease, teaching fair play, teamwork and peace.

• Advocating for girls’ right to education in Rwanda

  In Rwanda, it is common for the burden of household chores and other familial responsibilities to fall to the girls, leaving them with less time for school and play. We're working with the communities to change attitudes and make sure girls have every opportunity the boys do.

• Choose to challenge the rewind for girls

  Choose to challenge the rewind. 11.2 million girls could be out of school forever because of COVID-19, their educations cut short by child marriage, early pregnancy, and other social pressures. We can’t let girls’ hopes and dreams be permanently extinguished.

• Protecting, Educating, and Empowering Children during COVID-19: Q & A with Susan McIsaac, Right To Play’s new CEO

  A question and answer session with Susan McIsaac, Right To Play’s new CEO, about how we're supporting children to rise above the challenges impacting them.

• Creating lifelong learners using play

  By 2023, we will help over 3 million students in Ghana to stay in school and succeed by helping 75,000 teachers to incorporate learning through play into their lessons, all with the support of the LEGO Foundation.

• Staying Strong Despite Crisis in Mali

  In Mali, COVID-19 has kept children out of school, and put them in even greater danger of permanently dropping out to become child labourers. Our work seeks to prevent that.

• Sadio Mané Joins Right To Play as Global Ambassador

  Star footballer, Sadio Mané will use his voice and profile to empower children through sport and education.

• HELP CHILDREN STAND UP TO CRISIS

  From COVID-19 and school closures to economic crises and global conflicts, it has been a difficult time for children everywhere. But these kids refuse to let disasters, wars, inequality, and the pandemic determine and limit their futures.

• Putting children first during COVID-19

  Amid COVID-19, Right To Play has been taking action to keep children healthy and safe, learning, and mentally strong. We are using the power of play to protect, educate, and empower children to rise above adversity, and help their communities build back stronger.

• Keeping Kids Healthy

  Teachers in Ghana and Mozambique are using tippy-taps to teach children proper handwashing amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

• The Beirut Crisis: Helping Children Cope

  In the wake of the Beirut explosion, we are providing immediate and holistic support for children so that they can recover from the disaster’s social and emotional effects.

• Keeping Kids Learning During School Closures

  Keeping children learning amid COVID-19 school closures has been an enormous challenge all around the world. We're reaching millions with daily TV broadcasts in Mozambique that provide play-based lessons while children are home.

• Rising Up to Save Lives and Empower Children with Disabilities

  A child in Ethiopia dies from waterborne diseases almost every hour. Teaching children about water safety is critical to save lives and reduce the number of children who become seriously ill from preventable waterborne diseases.

• Right To Play Program Results and Outlook (2017-2019)

  Over the last 3 years we have continued to expand our programs to reach more children in 15 countries, creating new opportunities through play for those in vulnerable situations to experience quality education and acquire the life skills they need to succeed.

• Rising Up Against Displacement

  There are millions of displaced children worldwide. We work to ensure that they have access to a quality education.

• “I felt there was a new world opening for me”: In conversation with Aissa Traore and the Brookings Institution’s Rebecca Winthrop

  We spoke to Aissa and Rebecca Winthrop, Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution and Right To Play Board Member, about the barriers girls face in accessing a quality education and how to dismantle them, the effects of the COVID crisis, and the transformative effect of education on a girl’s life and future.

• We Rise Against Child Labour

  Child labour is one of the most pressing issues Right To Play works on. It sits at the intersection of poverty, diminished expectations, and systemic failures that come together to limit children’s futures and endanger their lives.

• How We're Responding To COVID-19

  The children we work with are some of the most vulnerable in the world and are particularly susceptible to the effects of a crisis like COVID-19.