Every day, six-year-old Kadriye plays with the toys in the box that was brought to her through the Project.
Kadriye excitedly waits for her teachers by the window on the day they will visit. While she takes the toys out of the playbox and goes through them, her mother Teslime explains that this is the first time her family has had access to resources her daughters can learn and play with. “We did not have any educational toys before. Using whatever resources I had, I glued numbers on cartons, making toys with materials like chocolate boxes and wafer packaging,” says Teslime Sancı.
The Sancı Family is just one of the 3,000 families who received "My Playbox Education Set" as part of the Early Childhood Education (ECE) Project funded by the European Union and the Republic of Türkiye. The family, consisting of mother Teslime Sancı, father Sinan Sancı and children Fatma (2), Kadriye (6) and Hatice Kübra (9), reside in Sarıkız Village of Konya. The father, who is a blacksmith, cannot work because a work accident six months ago caused him to have a lower back injury. The family, whose house burned down on May 22, 2021, is staying at the Sarıkız Neighborhood Mukhtar and Residence upon the permission of the headman.
After she plays with the educational toys in the box a little bit, we talk with Kadriye. With a big smile on her face, she tells us that she has named her doll “Ayşegül”. Her mother, Teslime, says that Kadriye learned many things that she did not know before thanks to her playbox.
She says that “Now Kadriye counts numbers and draws pictures”. Watching Kadriye as she draws, Teslime says, “Normally she did not like to draw, but she has been drawing pictures ever since we received crayons”.
“Not only Kadriye, but also her sister Fatma plays with the toys in the box every day, the two learn by playing together,” the mother, who watches both of her children playing with the box adds.
Teslime explains that their teachers visit the house every week, also adding “An hour a week passes really quickly with music and games. We wait for them to visit again, and in the meantime Kadriye spreads the toys from her playbox all around the house and plays with them”.
“My Playbox” application, is implemented under the home-based early childhood care and education model, focuses especially on all children under the age of six and their with limited or no access to early childhood education services.
The “Increasing Quality of and Access to Early Childhood Education” Project, co-financed by the European Union and the Republic of Türkiye, implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of National Education and UNICEF, will continue for three years and will support the provision of quality early childhood education to more than 50,000 children aged 0-6.
The ECE Project aims to increase access to early childhood education services for all children and to improve the quality of pre-school education. The main target groups of the Project include teachers, school administrators, parents and other ECE service providers. The Project aims to strengthen the capacities of ECE service providers so that all children receive quality early childhood education.
Teachers are supporting children's home-based early childhood education by using the items in the My Playbox Education Set during visits to the children’s homes at least once a month. This model will help support 5,000 children in 20 pilot provinces that are included in the Project.
