Botswana faces a crisis in early learning and wellbeing. Despite its upper-middle income status, it remains one of the most unequal countries globally, with 49% of children living in multidimensional poverty, and one of the highest youth suicide rates in the world. Only 15% of children aged 2–5 access early childhood education, and one in three Grade 3 students cannot read a single word. These outcomes reflect chronic underinvestment in the early years, when brain development is most rapid and the foundations for learning, wellbeing, and agency are formed.
Learn To Play was born to bring play-based, community-led early learning to rural and marginalised communities—where children, caregivers and educators are too often overlooked. Grounded in African values and co-created with communities, we support them to run their own playgroups, train local educators, and embed social-emotional learning through play, mindfulness, movement and storytelling.
Since 2017, we've reached over 10,000 children and trained hundreds of local teachers across sub-saharan Africa. Our work is evidence-informed, mapped to UNICEF’s ECDI2030 and the LEGO Foundation’s Learning Through Play framework, and is already influencing policy and government systems.
Our innovation isn’t just about access. It’s about changing the narrative—proving that African-led, joyful, holistic learning can transform futures. It’s about giving children the tools to build resilience, confidence, and hope from the very start.
Learn To Play is a community-powered model that transforms early childhood education through play. In practice, it looks like joyful, locally-run playgroups in rural villages, led by trained community teachers. These spaces are grounded in African values—welcoming, playful, and filled with songs, storytelling, nature-based learning and relationship-building. Communities and government play a central role in bringing this play to life co-funding and operating playgroups.
Caregivers join in too. Our Parent Playbox equips parents with simple, low-cost tools and activities to support learning and bonding at home. It bridges the gap between school and home, helping parents see themselves as their child’s first teacher.
To support emotional wellbeing, teachers deliver The Mindful Way— Africa's first mindfulness curriculum for the yearly years. We practice a daily 15-minute routine of mindfulness, movement, and social-emotional learning through play. It’s accessible, and has helped children show increased confidence, calmness, and empathy—even in refugee and marginalised settings.
We use a validated Play-Based Programme Assessment Tool to measure quality and impact—tracking changes in teacher-child interaction, emotional climate, and developmental skills. This gives us data to advocate for play in policy.
Together, these tools form a scalable ecosystem—low-cost, locally owned, and rooted in joy. It’s what early learning should feel like: safe, loving, and full of possibility.
Learn To Play began in 2017 with three community playgroups. Today, we’re reaching over 10,000 children, training hundreds of educators, and supporting local ownership of early learning across Botswana and sub-saharan Africa.
Our community-led playgroups, in partnership with the Government of Botswana, now operate daily in 8 districts across the country, powered by trained Maatla Mamas "strong mothers", who deliver joyful, holistic learning rooted in local culture.
Our innovations are designed for scale. Through our Mindful Way curriculum and training, we’ve supported 150+ educators in other countries and integrated daily social-emotional learning into playgroups, homes, and preschools across different contexts, including refugee camps.
We’ve distributed over 270 Parent Playboxes, reaching 800+ children, equipping caregivers to be learning partners at home. Our training model has spread to other organisations too—we’ve delivered educator workshops and shared tools with partners across the continent.
We also developed a Play-Based Programme Assessment Tool to measure impact and quality, giving communities, NGOs and governments data to improve their programs.
Our growth is driven by local leadership, smart partnerships, and the belief that African-born solutions can transform early learning at scale. In 2026 and beyond, LTP will be working with the Botswana Government as a technical partner for increasing access to quality early childhood education across the country.
Our innovation has continually evolved in response to community feedback, context shifts, and impact data.
We began with village playgroups but quickly saw that children’s wellbeing and learning needed support beyond the playgroup. So we co-created the Parent Playbox—a home-based toolkit that empowers caregivers with simple, playful activities to nurture their children’s development. It’s now reaching over 800 families, including in refugee and remote settings.
To strengthen social-emotional skills and resilience, we added The Mindful Way—a 15-minute daily routine combining mindfulness, play, and movement. Initially developed for teachers in crisis-affected areas, it’s now part of all our playgroups and has been rolled out to over 120 educators across three countries. In 2024, we saw a 60% increase in SEL outcomes at playgroups thanks to the Mindful Way.
We also introduced a Play-Based Programme Assessment Tool, enabling communities and governments to track quality and impact using locally relevant indicators. It helps ensure our model remains responsive, joyful, and effective. In 2024, 77% of children were developmentally on track to meet their language and literacy goals.
Finally, we’re adapting our model for government integration. In Botswana, we’re supporting various districts to pilot universal access to ECE, using our innovations as a foundation. These modifications show how a community-rooted model can remain agile, scalable, and grounded in children’s real needs.
We believe play is powerful—and we’d love for you to experience it too.
Whether you’re an educator, organisation, policymaker or caregiver, there are many ways to get started with Learn To Play. Our approach is designed to be accessible, adaptable, and joyful—no matter your context.
You can start by exploring our sample resources from The Mindful Way— simple, daily 15-minute practices of mindfulness, play and movement that supports children’s emotional wellbeing. We offer training and implementation support for educators and organisations, tailored to your setting.
If you're looking to support learning at home, we offer our Parent Playbox—a low-cost, hands-on kit full of play-based activities for caregivers to use with their children, even in low-resource environments.
We also partner with organisations and governments to help set up playgroups, train teachers, and embed our play-based model into existing systems. Our tools, including our Play-Based Programme Assessment Tool, are open for collaboration and learning.
Visit www.learntoplay.org or contact us directly—we’d be thrilled to explore how play can bring joy, healing, and connection to your community.
