Teacher Awa stands at the front of her classroom, several metres from the first row of desks, facing her students.

“We are going to play a game that requires you to work in teams to construct a sentence as quickly as possible,” she tells the children huddled together in groups of three or four.

The game is called Pressed Dictation. One child on each team holds a pencil and paper, while the others eye up the distance from themselves to the teacher. Awa says, “Go.” A child from each team races towards her. When they reach her, Awa tells her students a single word from a short sentence that she’s written on a hidden piece of paper. They run back to their waiting team and whisper the word Awa told them. Relay-style, the next child goes to the front of the room to collect another word; meanwhile, the assigned “writer” records each returning runner’s contribution.

Once all the words are collected, it’s the job of each team to use what they’ve learned about language and grammar to organize the words into a correct sentence that matches Awa’s. The first team to get it right wins the round.

Awa has been a primary school teacher in Mopti province, Mali, since 2016, but she’s only recently started using play-based learning in her classroom.

Before being trained in play-based learning by Right To Play, Awa delivered her lessons mostly through lectures. Grammar, for example, was a dry practice of repeat-after-me, not a fun and memorable race that ignites students’ minds and exercises their knowledge.

“Before [Right To Play], lessons were delivered using traditional methods, and the children really struggled to understand,” Awa says. “But with practical games like Pressed Dictation, my pupils understand the lessons more easily and are more engaged … They are at the heart of the lesson now, and they learn with joy.”

Students and Schools Suffer the Consequences of Conflict

More than 2.3 million learners in Mali are out of school due to issues such as poverty, child labour, forced marriage, and conflict. Many who are in school aren’t receiving a quality education and are not achieving literacy benchmarks. Two-thirds of Grade 2 students and nearly 90% of Grade 5 students in Mali have not mastered basic reading and arithmetic skills. Only 15% of girls and 20% of boys are enrolled in secondary education.

Conflict is one of the major barriers to education that students face. Families and teachers flee unstable areas in search of safety. When they arrive in new communities as internally displaced persons, it can be challenging for students to enroll in a new school. Many arrive without a birth certificate to prove their identity and nationality, creating a barrier to enrollment. For others, lack of infrastructure is an issue—in Mali, more than 1,700 schools are closed due to conflict. The country’s schools are among the most attacked in Africa, so a lot of children are kept at home by parents out of concern for their safety. Additionally, many girls are forced to leave school to focus on domestic work or to get married. In the Mopti area where Awa teaches, only 14% of Grade 4 students attending school can read at their grade level.

But with support from Right To Play, Awa is on a mission to change that.

Teaching Transformed and Reading Revived

In August 2022, Right To Play launched the EMPOWER project, funded by the Canadian government through Global Affairs Canada. Implemented in partnership with community-based organizations in the Mopti and Gao regions of Mali, EMPOWER supports internally displaced and host-community children – particularly girls and children living with disabilities – to develop their literacy and life skills through play-based learning. Partner community-based organizations are led by internally displaced persons and women, making them powerful allies because they live in the community and are dedicated to addressing the issues that affect it. Their members not only understand the local context but also have the trusted relationships to influence decision-making, and the invested interest to take ownership of the project’s outcomes. Most importantly, their lived experiences mirror those of the students they are supporting, and they understand firsthand how important education is to their shared future.

Powerful partners need powerful tools to improve the quality of education delivered. Play, which can offer new and exciting ways to learn skills, is part of the toolkit.

Through play-based learning, students become more engaged in school and their lessons. They have fun practicing skills so they can apply them in their daily lives, and they begin to see new opportunities for themselves. Intentional play also helps teachers adapt lessons to ensure that girls and children living with disabilities are included in meaningful ways. In disrupted environments, play allows children to experience routine and normalcy, giving them a break from the chaos around them and opportunities to find relief from intense stress.

Since the project launched, the EMPOWER team has trained 550 teachers and school principals to deliver play-based learning, including Awa.

“Since training with Right To Play, my teaching methods have changed a lot,” she says.

Instead of lecturing to passive students, she now uses games and activities to foster active learners. As a result, Awa has seen improvements in her students’ academic performance, including their reading and writing skills.

For example, to practice spelling, she writes letters on the blackboard; then the children practice arranging them into words using a silly dance move assigned to each one. Laughing as they each try to repeat the right sequence of moves helps them to remember the correct sequence of letters. To teach new vocabulary, she incorporates the words into a song to help her students recall their meaning.

“Since we introduced play into our lessons, I’ve been very happy because the children actively participate and always ask for play in our various classes,” she says. “At first, the children took to a classroom game like any other, but over time, they came to understand that play is a way for them to learn.”

Amadou is an example of the enthusiasm and depth of change taking place. A Grade 4 student, he didn’t like school and preferred to stay home to help his family rear oxen – an activity he loves. But with the introduction of play in the classroom, Amadou has come to love learning, too. Awa says he concentrates more in class, regularly participates in lessons, and no longer misses school.

Today's Readers, Tomorrow's Leaders

EMPOWER will reach roughly 40,000 internally displaced and host community children like Amadou by March 2027.

For teachers like Awa, the challenges are many. They face large class sizes and the struggle of getting their students not only interested enough to attend school but also to behave and participate in class. For children who’ve been forced from their homes, she must foster an environment where young people feel safe enough to believe in themselves and new possibilities.

That means fostering inclusion. Awa strives to ensure that all students in her classroom feel like they are a part of the learning process. She makes an extra effort to ensure that girls and children living with disabilities can actively participate in lessons in an environment where individuals – and the games – treat everyone as equals. This approach exposes each child to their peers’ diverse perspectives and helps them develop their socio-emotional skills, such as empathy and teamwork.

“Play has enabled the children to create an environment where everyone feels valued and respected,” Awa says.

“I would like Right To Play to continue training teachers so that we can improve pupils’ reading, writing, and life skills … If we do that and all the teachers apply [play-based learning] in the classroom, our students will go very far.”

The EMPOWER project is made possible with the support of the Government of Canada provided through Global Affairs Canada.