“National Play Day is vital in enabling us to introduce in a formal way for this country to remember that our children need to be children, they need to be allowed to play both at home and in school…”
Occasionally on social media platforms like X and WhatsApp in Uganda, photos of children trend with “legend’ as a single word caption accompanying the photos. The child is usually seen returning to their home having spent an enormous amount of time playing, sometimes in the muddy playground in the community or with tattered clothes having been sliding downhill especially on a rainy day. In some instances, an unhappy parent or guardian is seen giving the child a tense look.
Sometimes, parents and guardians admonish the children for having spent all their time playing instead of focusing on their studies or household chores. Yet play is considered one of the most transformative forces in children’s life through which they learn and develop and improve their psychosocial wellbeing.
It is under this background that Uganda held its inaugural National Play Day on 30 April at the Kololo Independence Grounds in its capital Kampala, becoming the first country in the world to do so following the declaration by the United Nations General Assembly that designated every 11 June as the International Day of Play.
Uganda’s national play day was organized by the Ministry of Education and Sports in partnership with UNICEF, Plan International with funding from Lego Foundation and Education Cannot Wait.
Read more here: https://www.unicef.org/uganda/stories/uganda-holds-first-ever-national-play-day