Play Africa

Disruptive innovation to empower children parents teachers and communities.

Overview

Play Africa is the first established children s museum in sub Saharan Africa pioneering inclusive shared and equitable spaces for high quality play and playful learning. In six years of successful operations it has become a globally acclaimed platform to champion children s rights foster social inclusion and bring families together through inspiring play.In the last 12 months we've changed the lives of 6739 children parents and teachers through meaningful 2 3 hour visits to Play Africa.Our inclusive and interactive children s play museum for children aged 0 to 10 and their families and schools is based inside a former prison at the iconic Constitution Hill in inner city Johannesburg just 15 metres from Nelson Mandela s cell.We transform this apartheid era prison from a site of humiliation oppression and fear into a joyful family playscape of discovery and learning. Not every child can come to us so our children's play museum also creates pop up experiences in communities themselves in school halls parks community centres and inner city rooftops. Everyone deserves access to safe environments where they can play create discover and connect with one another so we make 21st century high quality playful learning available to everyone from all walks of life and abilities. Everyone who visits Play Africa can try new play experiences in sciencetechnology engineering arts and math that are locally relevant and rooted ineducational pedagogies. Over the last five years we ve created inclusive scalable appropriate solutions in a society that is highly polarized deeply unequal and characterised by exclusion.Five days a week we offer free safe and inclusive public play and educational spaces open to the 1 million children age 10 and under in greater Johannesburg and increasingly attract visitors from neighbouring provinces. Besides making provision for play on site at Constitution Hill we conduct right to play outreach and advocacy programmes in underserved communities that directly serve tens of thousands of children nationwide.Our goal is to be a model of a fully inclusive cultural institution in South Africa. The majority of our beneficiaries include children who from low income homes underserved communities are physically or mentally disabled neglected orphaned homeless refugees or asylum seekers physically and/or mentally abused or traumatised. We offer special access hours twice a month to make special provision and remove additional barriers for children with disabilities and special needs.