Advocacy of PlayToyi UpdatesPlay Advocates Meet on World Play Day!

We get together with the Play Advocates in Turkey.  Parents, educators, designers, and humanitarian workers will discuss current issues in the play industry and create their own messages to support children’s right to play at the World Play Day, which is celebrated every year on May 28 to highlight the importance of play.

Play Advocates Meet at World Play Day!

Play Days is a series of events created by Toyi to bring Play Advocates together for discussions about current issues concerning play and to create an environment in which everyone can contribute to the solutions with their own unique advocacy methods.

Despite the increase in the value of play in Turkey and the World, the issues in the toy industry do not usually talk about. However, there is a need to talk about the gender stereotypes such as “a girl’s toy” and “a boy’s toy” signs that we all see in toy stores, the right to play of children in crisis and disaster situations, the needs of children whose creativity has been dulled in today’s conditions and solutions for these problems should be produced. Toyi setting out from these needs, will debate recent challenges by bringing together stakeholders who are interested in play from different disciplines in Turkey

Play advocates will find their own unique methods to support children’s right to play

In the first part of the event, which will take place on May 28th World Play Day in ATÖLYE, the speakers from the fields of education, design, and social entrepreneurship will share their own stories of play advocacy. The panel will be moderated by Toyi Communication and Advocacy Manager Gizem Kendik  Önduygu, in which Dr. Belma Tuğrul and Berna Arslan will share their stories in the education sector, and Toyi Co-Founder Elif Atmaca will share her story ranging from industrial design to social entrepreneurship. The second part will consist of a meet-up of parents, educators, designers, and civil society workers who will discuss the current issues in the field of play and craft their own advocacy messages.

Everyone can do  something to support the children’s right to play

We believe that everyone has something that they can do to support the children’s right to play, and we call everyone who has found ways to promote children’s right to play, to be a Play Advocate. Gizem Kendik, Communications and Advocacy Manager of Toyi, describes Play Advocates as: “Play is a fundamental right for children, but often the children’s right to play is ignored. Whoever promotes children’s right to play, advocating for play in his way: a teacher who encourages play-friendly practices in his school, an aunt who creates time to play with his nephew, a parent who demands that the toy industry has to be more purified from gender stereotypes… We call them Play Advocates.”

“We need a new model of advocacy”

Toyi, which aims to raise awareness about the right to play, aims to develop a new advocacy model with the concept of ‘Play Advocates‘. Toyi Communication and Advocacy Manager Gizem Kendik Önduygu: “It is impossible for institutions to solve the problems we face today by themselves. In order to involve more people with the solution, they need to put the issues on the agenda of the people, make them talk about these issues and take action to solve them. Achieving this requires more than issuing papers, creating reports read only by a group of experts, or simply organizing more balls to raise funds. In Toyi, what we’re trying to do in terms of advocacy is to bring this concept into the daily life of people and encourage everyone to advocate in their own unique ways. ”

We invite everyone who wants to support the children’s right to play to become a Play Advocate. To join the Play Advocates and register for the event on May 28, World Play Day:

https://www.facebook.com/events/659792391101187/