The TOY for Inclusion project and the Early Childhood Education and Care Play Hubs, received support for another 2 years.

The project will now run up to January 2021, adding a new location to each country in which they are currently involved. Also, they will expand into new countries, one of them being Turkey.

This new phase is focused on upscaling and reaching out to all marginalized children. Not only Roma children but also other children at risk or in poverty. An EU campaign and a capacity building trajectory for local authorities will commence in due course. The ultimate goal of all partners involved is to embed the TOY for Inclusion approach to community based Early Childhood Education and Care in local, regional and EU policy.

'We are delighted to hear that TOY for Inclusion’s Play Hubs can continue to bring services to many children and families of disadvantaged communities. These Play Hubs provide much needed opportunities for families to meet, for children and adults to play together and for parents to receive expert advice on how to nurture child development,' says Mathijs Euwema, Director of International Child Development Initiatives (ICDI) who coordinates the project.

Addressing discrimination
REYN and Together Old and Young (TOY) joined forces to create TOY for Inclusion, a project to address increasingly worrying issues like discrimination and segregation that oppress Romani children from very early age.

TOY for inclusion aims to improve the transition experience of Roma children to schools by offering an innovative response to discrimination of Roma communities by creating community based Early Childhood Education and Care Play Hubs (resource and meeting centres) where relationships between Roma and non-Roma young children and their families are built and interactions in safe play spaces across all generations are supported.

Learning opportunities
Building on the success of the TOY project, TOY for Inclusion combines two approaches: it promotes intergenerational learning opportunities between older adults and young children as well as community-based early childhood education and care.

TOY for Inclusion designs educational resources and establishes ECEC Play Hubs in seven European countries: Belgium, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia – all REYN National Networks countries. Additionally, a TOY for Inclusion Play Hub will be established in Latvia.

This project is co-funded by the European Commission and the Open Society Foundations and runs from 2017 to 2019. For more information and get access to our news, publications and resources, please visit the official website of the project: https://www.reyn.eu/toy4inclusion/


Partners at arms
TOY for Inclusion is a project coordinated by International Child Development Initiatives – ICDI (NL). Other partners are the International Step-by-Step Association – ISSA (NL) and seven members of REYN: Educational Research Institute – ERI (Slovenia), Open Academy Step by Step – OASS (Croatia), Centre for Education Initiatives – CEI (Latvia), Wide Open School – WOS (Slovakia), Centre for Innovation in the Early Years – VBJK (Belgium), Associazione 21 Luglio (Italy) and Partners Hungary Foundation.