GUIDE TO POTENTIAL FOR PLAY IN LOW-INCOME HOUSEHOLDS
I worked with Mumbai Mobile Creches (MMC) to gain perspective on early childhood development amongst the minimum wage population of India. MMC provides day care and early childhood development programmes to the children of construction workers in Mumbai. It acted as a knowledge base and allowed interaction with children and parents from this income bracket to better understand ideas about childhood needs and expectations from the parents’ point of view.
After rigorous primary and secondary research my finds revealed that: the care and stimulation that children got at the creche did not carry over when the children went home. The teachers wanted to be able to communicate better and have more of a dialogue with the parents. Babies and toddlers recognized, approached, and played with objects that were familiar to them from their home. With these objects, children demonstrated ways of playing that they were not introduced to in the creche.
I created a poster/booklet that identifies these household objects - a stool, a mosquito net, a rolling pin and a bowl, and their potential for play, to the parents and/or caretakers of the children.
BOOKLET
