Dear Parents,

Sir John Wilson School would like to take an opportunity to help the underprivileged community through your support and cooperation by running an old toys and books collection/donation drive. I believe this drive will enable our children to develop more empathy and encourage them to find ways to give back to the society. Please read the description given below to know how you can participate in it.

‘TOYS R Urs’ an initiative from The Ex-Cadet Forum

Introduction

Over the last few decades the development of toys and its role has changed drastically. Although the main purpose of the toys remains as a 'source of joy and fun' for children, it is being used now for educational purpose to engage children in learning. Researches show the importance of toys and play in early childhood development. Only a tiny portion of our 'new generation' is fortunate enough to get the toys they want. Millions of poor children living in urban slums and in rural areas can't effort to buy these toys. Most of these children still rely on hand and homemade toys through recycling. The joy of being a child and the learning opportunity is missing in their lives.

The Ex-Cadet Forum - a platform comprising of ex-cadet from all twelve cadet colleges of Bangladesh, initiates a project called 'Toys R Urs' to ensure that these underprivileged children get toys through an innovative approach. Toys R Urs, to its own merit, is Bangladesh's first large scale used toy collection effort.

Objective

The Objectives of the project are:
1. To help poor and underprivileged children to experience the joy of playing with toys
2. To unite the local community including the children from well-off families for a common cause

Project Description

The project will develop a comprehensive toy collection method through multiple channels ranging from campaign, use of social media to corporate staff giving. The major activities under the project are described briefly below:

Collection of Toys

The used toys by kids who are studying in different schools at cities are collected through a series of 2-3 day campaigns. For individual level donation, different drop-off points are allocated throughout Dhaka cities so that interested people can directly donate their used toys. Social media will be used to raise awareness and mobilize so that more toys can be collected. The large companies with higher number of staff in their office will also play a vital role as they will organize internal toy collection campaign as part of their Corporate Responsibility.

Storage, Sort and Repair

All the collected toys will be centrally stored where they will be sorted based on the types of toys. From our experience, we found that many of these toys need repairing before it can be donated to the children. Small repairing will be carried out through volunteers.

Distribution

The collected toys will be distributed mainly through Development Organizations and local NGOs who are operating schools for poor and underprivileged children. The distribution method will be mainly of two types:

Individual donation: Individual children will receive toys through the schools which they will take home. These types of toys include doll, toy vehicles, toy figurine, toy animals etc. The purpose of these toys is to instill joy in the young minds of the children.

Institutional donation: The toys that are mainly for educational purposes like puzzles, construction toys, learning toys like alphabet, word card etc. will be distributed to the schools directly who can use these toys to improve the learning of the children. These toys will be used in groups or at individual level and the receipt schools will take care of them.

Partners and Supporters

ECF Social Responsibility Team (SRT) is in charge of the execution and overall management of the project.

Benefits/Results

1.The benefits of the project are multi-faceted. The donated toys will not only bring joy to the children but it will also help them to learn more effectively at school through many of the educational toys.
2. On the flip side, the donor children will learn about helping and supporting to those who are in need. These children will be more compassionate and supportive at a very young age that will make them a better person in future. The parents have to play a vital role to engage their children in the whole donation process and explain the benefits to them.
3. If not reused, these unused toys might go to the dustbin and eventually will end up at a landfill site causing serious harm to environment. The project enables reuse of these toys and will benefit to the environment. © Ex-Cadets Forum, 2016

Sir John Wilson School will collect the old toys and books from this week starting from tomorrow 20th September till Thursday 29th September 2016. Please note that if the bag of toys and books is small then you may send it with your child in the morning. However, if it’s a carton or a big bag then please label it with your child’s name and send it during the departure time in order to reduce the traffic.

We request you to come forward wholeheartedly to make this drive a success!

Thank you in advance for your support.

Best Regards

Sabrina Shaheed

Acting Principal

Sir John Wilson School