Celebrating National Play Day in El Salvador
Hello! I'm Mario Perez, the Early Childhood Technical Specialist at Whole Child International here in El Salvador. Recently, I had the privilege of coordinating our participation in three festivals during the month of October, celebrating National Play Day together with the Instituto Crecer Juntos (Grow Together Institute, ICJ). The magnitude of the festivals was incredible - we expected around 3,000 girls and boys between the ages of 2 and 7! This motivated me to work intensely with our team to make sure that every activity and every toy in our assigned area was meaningful, fun, and safe for the little ones.
Since I received the assignment to organize our participation, I felt concerned, responsible, and excited to be involved in every detail. We thought about how the toys and other play materials would make children smile and wondered what would the parents’ reaction be when they saw their children run, play and discover all the items laid out for them below our canopy.
The idea to make National Play Day an anual event lasting for one month arose in 2023 with the support of the First Lady, the National Council for Early Childhood (CONAPINA), and the Ministries of Education, Science and Technology, and Health with the main goal of amplfying the importance of play as an essential right of every child in the country. In line with this objective, ICJ organized 14 festivals in each of the country's departments, to ensure that thousands of children had the opportunity to participate in this celebration. As Whold Child we joined the early childhood networks in San Salvador, La Libertad, and Chalatenango, where we worked with other civil society actors, public institutions, and private companies to plan a few days full of interactive and educational activities.
Our early childhood team at Whole Child met several times to evaluate which toys would be most appropriate for the event and designed activity zones that would motivate children to explore and play freely without adult direction. We focused on creating four play areas with a ‘construction’ theme:
Exploration Zone: Here children could discover different textures and materials that stimulated their natural curiosity in a big sand box.
Imagination Zone: This was a space where children developed their creativity - expressing themselves freely as they painted a big cardboard house.
Sensory Zone: This space was designed to stimulate the senses with a variety of tactile and visual experiences as they painted a big canvas with their hands.
Construction Zone: This was an area where they could exercise coordination, creativity, and their ability to solve problems with lots of wooden blocks and tools to play with.
The experience was really enriching. Seeing the children's smiles and how their parents joined in on the activities was a very rewarding moment. As I watched the little ones, I noticed how some didn't know each other and became instant friends, sharing toys and play spaces. This spontaneous connection is an important reminder:
“Play is not only a fun activity, but a means to build relationships and learn lifelong skills”.
Personally, I enjoyed every moment of each day watching the children build sandcastles, dress up as construction workers, and transform a simple cardboard box into a colorful playhouse. Children's creativity is unlimited, and each activity in our canopy allowed them to develop their fine and gross motor skills along with their social and problem solving skills in a space that fostered free play and freedom of movement. Parents learned that children left alone with a variety of options can spend hours playing happily.
Would I do it again? No doubt! I would re-plan every detail and enjoy again seeing so many families and children indulging in the experience of play. Promoting the right to play is, without a doubt, a mission that I want to continue supporting and I hope that this initiative grows and reaches more corners of El Salvador.
Our participation in National Play Day has been made possible thanks to the support of the people of the United States of America through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the technical assistance of Whole Child International. The views/opinions in this blog are the responsibility of Whole Child International and do not necessarily reflect those of USAID, the U.S. Government, or Whole Child International.
