Right To Play

The Positive Impact of Play
Over 67 million children around the globe are not able to attend school regularly, millions of children are dying worldwide from preventable diseases while 1 billion children live in conflict affected areas. Right to Play is a non- profit organization founded in 2000, by 4 time gold medalist Johann Olav Koss. Right to Play uses transformative abilities of play to: allow children to gain important practical skills useful for the rest of their lives, the intelligence to be able to fight epidemics and stay healthy, and bring children from all ethnicities together in order to promote longing peace in the world. These all together help empower children facing disease, conflict, and poverty throughout the world thus

First of all, with “play [being used as] an incentive, attendance rates are improving and children are more actively engaged in their lessons which leads to better learning”. And due partially to the higher attendance, “93% of kids participating in Right to Play report[ed] high[er] levels of communication skills, respect, self- esteem and peer support” based on a 2011 study in Uganda . Since children are able to play and learn at the same time, children become more intrinsically motivated, thus leading to more learning. One specific individual highly impacted by Right to Play is Daphine of Uganda, who “joined [Right to Play’s] programs at the age of four, [however] she was a shy girl, without the confidence to speak for herself”. Couple years later, displayed confidence and proved her capabilities by achieving the highest score in Uganda’s National Standardized Testing. Moreover, Daphine even went on to say “When I’m in class my brain is always alert [and] when exam time comes, I remember what the teacher told me”, thus crediting Right to Play for her academic achievements. As of Today, Daphine has aspirations of becoming the President Uganda. All in all, Daphine is a prime example of a student that went from an underperforming student to best in the nation, thus amplifying the effect Right to play has on children. Therefore, Right to Play is able to offer

Through the use of a variety of games or activities, Right to Play is able to save lives and create a healthier lifestyle for many children. Due to the many practices taught, many preventable illnesses that are wreaking havoc worldwide can be avoided. For example, one practice in order to avoid the disease Malaria, responsible for “killing 1500 children daily” is Mosquito Tag; “where kids must stand in one place if their tagged and act out the symptoms of Malaria”, thus allowing children to distinguish and act upon the symptoms of the disease until a doctor can come for assistance (Unicef). Children are also taught the importance of sanitation and hygiene. Poor sanitation and hygiene is responsible for causing over 1800 deaths annually in children. One of the many practices applied to fight the epidemic is the game Health Guess in which children are lined up into teams and the instructor acts out a specific hygienic practice without the use of words, meanwhile the children are asked to determine the healthy practice and match it with the cards across the room. Once the kid finds the correct card, he is asked to return to the end of the line, hence the cycle repeats. In the end, the children are asked to reflect on the activity which is significantly vital as it allows the children to understand how to use these essential