The award shall help to reduce domestic violence and support children’s holistic development through positive fatherhood
3:15 pm EAT, 6 December 2022
Kampala, Uganda, Dec. 6, 2022 – Today, the LEGO Foundation announced Impact and Innovations Development Centre (IIDC) as one of the five recipients of its global Build a World of Play Challenge to fund bold, innovative and impactful solutions focused on early childhood. The LEGO Foundation is awarding a total of DKK 900 million (approximately US$ 117 Million) to support organisations that make substantial contributions to the lives of children from birth to six years old and spark a global movement to prioritise early childhood development. Our project, Catalyzing REAL Fathers across Uganda for Early Learning and Play, received US $13,883,297
Responsible, Engaged and Loving (REAL) Fathers is an evidence-based, community-led mentoring program for fathers of toddler-aged children that teaches positive parenting and nonviolent discipline. The five-year project is a major social-cultural norm changing intervention, that seeks to bring men and fathers at the Centre of child learning and play for adequate early childhood development. The money will provide close to half a million children with a brighter start to life, and for thousands more, a re-start of early learning through play. This means that children will start learning early, fathers will be more engaged in their children’s lives, better health and nutrition for children and mothers, and a violent free childhood.
The Build a World of Play Challenge was launched on February 16, 2022, by the LEGO Foundation to address a global early childhood emergency, characterised by a lack of access globally to quality services and supports that are needed during the critical early years of a child’s development – an emergency which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The awards reaffirm the LEGO Foundation’s commitment in the LEGO® brand’s 90th year to ensure children globally are given opportunities to realise their full potential by learning through play.
According to the Executive Director of IIDC Deogratias Yiga, IIDC is excited is one of the 5 winners globally for the Build A World Of Play Challenge project. The five year REAL-ECD Scale up project will positively transform social cultural norms around fatherhood to promote healthy child development.
The REAL Fathers initiative is planned to be implemented in 24 districts across the seven regions of Uganda. IIDC shall undertake this project with four partners including, Somero Uganda; All Nations Child Development Centre; World Education-Bantwana; and Forum for African Women Educationalists, with technical support from the University of California San Diego and funded by The LEGO Foundation.
The Challenge received a total of 627 valid proposals from 86 countries, from which ten finalists were selected. Applicants were evaluated by multi-disciplinary experts from across the world based on four criteria: whether they were impactful, feasible, community-centred, and sustainable. The awards announced today will help in furthering specific bold projects which promote the well-being of children, their caregivers, and their communities, using culturally relevant and sustainable approaches. The other winners include Johns Hopkins Centre for Indigenous Health, IRD Global, Ubongo International and Clinton Health Access Initiative.
Thomas Kirk Kristiansen, Chairman of the LEGO Foundation Board of Directors, said: “As part of the LEGO brand’s 90th anniversary, the LEGO Foundation made a commitment to help build a better world for young children to thrive. The Build a World of Play Challenge is designed to do just that, by funding innovative projects that make a real difference for global childhood development and give young children a better start in life. Congratulations to all the recipients, who have all demonstrated game-changing solutions. We look forward to working alongside them as long-term partners, to invest in children’s futures.”
The LEGO Foundation partnered with Lever for Change a non-profit affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, to manage the Challenge process. Lever for Change connects donors with bold solutions to tackle the world’s biggest problems – including issues like racial inequity, gender inequality, lack of access to economic opportunity, and climate change.
More details on the Build a World of Play Challenge can be found at https://learningthroughplay.com/build-a-world-of-play/the-challenge
More details about the winning projects
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1-EVpeapEbYw720EUf_4yWb2kk8XDQ4b0
Press Contacts:
For more information, contact IIDC on admin@ïidcug.org Tel: +256 392002512
About IIDC
IIDC is a not-for-profit organization that seeks to improve the wellbeing of vulnerable groups in Africa through promoting evidenced impactful socio-economic development interventions and innovations. IIDC’s current focus is the promotion of a learning and improvement -oriented approach to development programming. We are a learning partner to a cohort of child-rights focused organizations across East Africa in the Learning Initiative on Violence against Children (VAC). We also support development organizations to design and implement development interventions that are impactful, safe for the target group and measurable.
