Fabretto Children's Foundation: Acquiring and Applying Knowledge Through Play
Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.
Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Also describe the projected future impact for the coming years.
Spread Strategies: Moving forward, what are the main strategies for scaling impact?
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Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?
Founding Story
Team
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, VA, Alexandria
Individuals, Foundations, NGOs.
Fabretto Children's Foundation - Charity Navigator 4-Star Charity 2013
1.5 - 3, 3 - 5.
Other.
I am applying on behalf of a particular program or initiative.
Public (tuition-free).
Curricular, Professional Development.
Equip Adults to Drive Change in Learning: Providing creative learning experiences for teachers, parents, working professions and others that empowers them to drive change in any part of the learning ecosystem.
Our project seeks to stimulate early child development, including cognitive, physical, and socio-emotional development. We seek for children to become confident learners who develop knowledge, skills, and independence.
A-Our focus is practical and hands-on classes for students in five subject areas: language and communication, math, sensory learning, practical life lessons, culture.
B-Fabretto's 7 education centers and public schools throughout Nicaragua.
C-These lessons are integrated into the learning techniques teachers use with students on a daily basis.
D-Students in kindergarten will be playing to learn 3 hrs/week, and in elementary school 2 hrs/week.
E-Reinforcement teachers (at Fabretto centers) and Ministry of Education teachers prepare materials and teach these hands-on lessons.
We are inspired by the fact that parents are becoming more and more conscious of the role that they play in their child's education, and becoming more involved in the learning process; They understand that quality education is an on-going process that relies on the parents, teachers, students and the environment. New challenges in a modernizing society obligate us to change our education system in order to prepare students to respond to these demanding challenges efficiently and effectively. With parental support, we believe this is achievable.
Play has a lot to do with the direct contact and manipulation of materials. Hands-on activities stimulate learning and creativity because tactile learning increases retention. This means that through play and curiosity, students can begin to understand their world in a more significant way. Hands-on activities (play) allow students to understand and discriminate between textures, sizes, colors, and shapes. In addition, they cause students to be more alert, allow them to develop creativity and imagination, and facilitate learning how to work as part of a group.
Based on our data from 2013, our funding can be broken down into the following categories:
US government grants-25%
Non-government grants-8%
Contributions from individuals and businesses-38%
In-kind contributions-22%
Merchandise sales-2%
Event ticket sales-4.6%
All other income-0.4%
Fabretto promotes education and opportunity in Nicaragua but as a non-profit relies on partnerships with organizations such as the Ministry of Education. In this partnership, Fabretto as a non-profit has an advisory role for what programs could be used to increase the quality of education in Nicaraguan public schools, and then, as is the case with this program, acts as a bridge delivering the idea, training, materials, to public schools.
Funds would be appropriated to materials and teacher training. While many materials are recycled, we also use wood, which needs to be bought.
Training teachers in aquiring knowledge through play methodology and supplying them with materials is the key to the success and reach of this program.
The Nicaraguan Ministry of Education is a key partner. Because of their support, we have been able to train public school teachers and implement this methodology throughout the country, on a much larger scale than would be possible without their partnership. Now, public school teachers have access to training and materials such that aquiring and applying learning through play can be part of daily public school lessons in over 50 public schools.
We are open to sharing our approach with other organizations, specifically those working towards a similar mission as ours. Start-up organization or NGOs currently scaling may be able to benefit from information we have in areas in which we have had particular success. Feel free to contact us.
Our program will have provided Nicaraguans in public schools access to quality and student-based education which respects individual learning styles motivating students to want to go to school.
Classrooms will have sufficient materials and be places where students have access to new technology.
Teachers and parents alike will be involved in the learning process.
Students will have access to creative recreational activities (eg. dance).
At Fabretto centers and in public schools, aquiring knowledge through play methodology reached 2,556 total preschool and primary school students last year, 1,236 of which were girls. In 2015 we hope to expand the program to reach a total of 3,054 students. While no formal impact report has been conducted, teachers already report a noticeable difference in the involvement and retention of information in their students.
500 to 1,000
No
10-100
10-100
Physical Play, Play with Objects, Pretence/ Socio-Dramatic Play, Games with Rules, Creating a Supportive Socio-Emotional Environment, Providing a Range of Opportunities (providing the equipment and materials needed for various types of play), Educational Structuring (developing playful projects within educational contexts), Adults Participating (Ensuring adults are able to play alongside children), Other (please specify).
play with practical objects (eg. kitchen supplies)
Comments
Hola Fabretto! :-) :-)
We are Jim Salmons of FactMiners.org and my partner/soulmate Timlynn Babitsky of The Softalk Apple Project. We participate equally in both projects, but have entered them one each under our Changemakers' user accounts.
Timlynn and I agree that Fabretto seems to be very much a "Kindred Spirit" project that would fit right in with what we are doing for our Pacesetters Round "action agenda"... that is, we're doing a self-help experiment in "bundled crowdfunding" on Kickstarter in September.
We're doing this as a self-organizing collaboration of #Play2Learn Pacesetters and you can find out more about it at www.DIYPlanetWalk.com.
Participation requirements are modest with each Partner project having the potential to achieve non-trivial funding if we are successful at generating a "network effect" with our collective and individual stories.
From what we have seen on your Changemakers project page, and on your website... especially that recent video of engaged playful/learning kids -- we know that Fabretto is just the organization to get Nicaraqua "Planet Walking". :-) :-)
Happy-Healthy Vibes from Cedar Rapids, Iowa USA,
--Jim & Timlynn--
You're doing great work. Keep it up. Children's wonderful imaginations need to be nurtured. We can learn from them. Estás haciendo un gran trabajo. Maravillosa imaginación de los niños tienen que ser nutridas. Podemos aprender de ellos.
Great project! Hope you can scale your train-the-trainer program to reach more and more pre-school children. Would love to hear more from your project. All the best!