Anu Akka's Children's Tackle Kit

Reports suggest that over 30% of poor children living across the world are found in India (Ref). Nearly ten crore children in India live in poverty-stricken conditions, where resources are a constraint. Studies show that positive childhood experiences and access to creative, fun avenues of non-directed play have an important role in shaping human development. Children living in under-served communities are deprived of these essential rescources.

Imagine having a box of excitement! That’s what the Anu Akka’s Children's Tackle Kit is. It’s a box of easy reading and fun learning materials, art supplies, craft materials, indoor games and outdoor sports equipment, and other materials designed to keep children meaningfully engaged for multiple hours a day after school. The idea of the program is to create within communities an opportunity for children from under-served communities to experience, for a short while every week, a physically and emotionally safe space where they can exercise free

choice to access the materials, and where intrinsic motivation is encouraged and self-directed learning is supported.

Through this program, children get access to a plethora of resources that they can then choose to engage with, at will. The beauty of the program lies in the fact that children from low-income and marginalized communities can choose what they want to play with, when they want to play, how they want to play, and who they want to play with. Playing with this kit helps improve a child’s cognitive skills, creative skills, and socio-emotional skills. This kit has been created in the loving memory of Anu, a person whose vision it was to bring a bit of joy into the lives of children everywhere. She coined the term 'Tackle' for the children's program of Headstreams, to symbolise how children from under-served communities tackled the challenges of everyday life and turned up to play and learn so joyfully at the Headstreams centres.

How the program works:

• Young women volunteers in rural, under-served communities are trained as 'Open Learning Champions' (OLCs) to create and manage a safe, play and learning space for children in their communities
• Free Anu Akka's Children'sTackle Kits are distributed to the OLCs in 33 under-served communities in Karnataka in 2021-22. The materials are replenished every month depending on the need of each centre
• The Kit consists of easy reading and fun learning materials, art supplies, craft materials, indoor games and outdoor sports equipment, and other materials designed to keep children joyfully learning and meaningfully engaged
• The OLCs set up and manage the play and learning space for children in their community, where children can either play with materials at that location or borrow materials to use and return (community resource bank concept) 
• The play and learning spaces are open for a minimum of 3 hours a week in each location

Objectives of the kit:

• Provide opportunities for children from under-served communities to explore multiple media such as literature, performing arts, visual arts, and games, to enhance self-awareness and self-confidence
• Develop a social space where participants can explore and experience security, empathy and freedom through creative means and healthy social interactions.
• Create a safe space for children to experience the healing and character strengthening power of play