Changing lives through play

Marie Williams remembers the moment well. After two weeks of volunteering in Tanzania she’d become close to Esther, the three-year-old girl who walked every day from her home, joining the group of community members, local skilled workers, and overseas volunteers, and becoming Williams’ favourite wood sander in the process. On this day she was inspecting the colourfully painted structures the team had built in the dry, empty field with interest. Finally daring to climb one of the short wooden stumps and jumping off she realised its purpose: it was for her and other children to play on.

For Williams, a senior chartered engineer at the time with experience in aerospace, nuclear fusion, and software design, the moment was a catalyst. It showed the huge difference play can make to children and communities, and demonstrated that everyone can contribute towards engineering solutions and creative programmes. “When I got back to work, I just couldn’t stop thinking about what we’d done, the way we’d engaged the community by co-designing the spaces we built with them to suit their specific requirements, and the need for play I’d seen,” she recalls. 

“I saw firsthand the challenges of the space – it was pretty desolate, the ground was hard, it was hot and there was little shade, so there just wasn’t anything for children to do. It focused me on the amount of space that exists that isn’t conducive to any kind of play,” says Williams. “I was working with Atkins Realis, a company that had helped me to thrive as an engineer and also develop my passion for play and social impact. I was working as a senior aerospace engineer and later in the ITER nuclear fusion project developing solutions to make energy use more sustainable. However, I was impact-led and, while I was doing good work, I felt the problem of play calling me. It just seemed like there was so much more needed elsewhere.”

Williams embraced the challenge and formed Dream Networks in 2016, a social enterprise that addresses play inequality around the world by enabling businesses, communities and educational institutions to collaboratively design and build sustainable play areas in marginalised communities. Inspired by William’s time in Tanzania and her lifelong passion for working and volunteering with children, including as a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) ambassador in schools and youth worker in her local community, Dream Networks recognises that children and young people across the world need access to inclusive and safe spaces where they can play and thrive. In a 2022 Tedtalk Williams, highlighted the need for us all to address the global emergency and suggests how this can be done through designing with children and building local connections with communities.

Through its programmes – Safe Haven and Love Plays – it creates play areas tailored to the needs of the community and the forms of play that children desire. Children and collaboration are at the heart of this process through a co-designing approach that engages children, encourages creativity, learning and development, and provides them with the agency and tools to create their own play spaces. Approximately 75% of the people Dream Networks works with are under the age of 18, or are BAME or women. 

“We work with schools and organisations that create play spaces like homebuilders and local authorities. We also work with the charitable or social responsibility areas of businesses – play inequality is linked to financial hardship and inequality, and social and economic deprivation, so including businesses in the conversation is essential,” Williams explains. “It’s highly collaborative and centred around co-design and children leading the way we make spaces; we follow a situated practice style, which is about putting children in authentic learning environments, immersing them in activities and using creative problem solving. When we reach the building stage, we always try to use sustainable, natural, or local materials and work with the local community to promote the conservation and innovative use of natural resources.”

Tackling play inequality

Millions of children worldwide have no access to safe and inclusive spaces. In the UK alone, one in eight children live in households with no gardens, meaning families have to rely on public play spaces. Yet, around 800 playgrounds have closed over the last decade leaving children without safe and accessible spaces. “There are some universal truths that are driving this emergency,” says Williams. “Predominantly, it’s about the environmental and economic factors, including things like privatisation of land and public spaces, and growing urbanisation with a lack of planning policies that prioritise play. It all leads to less space, which children desperately need to use their physical abilities, and for thought and imagination-led play. 

“There’s other cultural issues and things like mindset around what constitutes play and where the risks are in play spaces,” she adds. “In the African urban context, for example, you have to pay to use public playgrounds and parks in many urban areas, which immediately excludes people from using the space. More broadly, public spaces and playgrounds in urban areas are often used for something culturally significant or a dominant sport, and that lack of diversity increases inequality. Global planned play spaces are often standardised, which can be limiting in terms of equipment and diversity of play opportunities, but also physically for people with disabilities. There is also a bigger equity issue to address around the world when so many play spaces focus on physical play provision like football and climbing – if a child is hungry, not able to engage in physical activity or not interested in it, they can feel alienated and unable to play.”

Play is essential for children’s development and learning. Through play, children learn about the world and themselves, develop confidence and social skills, and improve their cognitive, physical, and emotional wellbeing. Such is its importance that Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child (UNCRC) creates a specific right for all children to have rest and leisure, and to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to their age and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts. The Convention recognises that free play is not an optional extra for children, but is fundamental to their development and intrinsic to their health and happiness in the present moment.

SDG 4 calls for, among other things, greater access to childhood development and learning, preparing all children for primary education, increasing the number of young people with essential skills including STEM, literacy and digital literacy, the knowledge and skills to promote sustainable development and the use of sustainable materials, and the ability to understand global sustainability issues. 

“There’s always been a need for play,” Williams says. “The engineer in me loves seeing children work in a creative way, solving problems through actively engaging with the space around them, and running workshops where I get to see them express ideas, sketch, and design – it’s all part of the play process. We engage the children as true design partners because we want to give them the agency to design, the ability and practical skills to create, and the knowledge transfer to be able to articulate clearly the problems they face and what they actually want. Creativity, especially in the era we’re in, is a critical skill that helps people address the inequalities in terms of access people can have to various roles in life, liberate and release innovative thinking, and create a sense of identity.”

The joy of co-creation

Dream Networks uses key design thinking principles when engaging children in co-design of play spaces: empathise, define, ideate, prototype, and test. Says Williams: “We empathise a lot – it’s essential. It’s about considering what the gaps are in terms of play needs within the environment, the space, the culture, and where the play is needed. We do it by using taxonomies, or different types of play. 

“With younger children observation is key to get a sense of what they’re doing in the play space,” she adds. “If it’s imagination-led, for example, we’d look at enhancing the environment to encourage that type of play. It may be that there’s a lot of physical activity, which would mean we’d have to consider how we’re meeting the needs of children with mixed abilities. Other taxonomies address things like inclusivity, neurodiversity, and physical abilities. I don’t believe in gender-based play spaces, but we do sometimes consider gender from a cultural perspective.  The process is very analytical and creative. We encourage young children to use visual cues, to paint, to tell their story and communicate through their teachers, whereas we get the older children to tell us what they like about play, what they enjoy in the space, what they’d like us to and more. It’s all about prompting, watching, learning, and understanding.”

The co-design process moves through a define stage, during which Dream Networks, children and communities run through workshops and ideation stages to set a project brief that combines standard considerations around things like safety and available space, with drawing, ideas, material choices, and other suggestions from the children. Here, constant feedback is essential to hone and refine the brief and the children’s ideas, and Dream Networks encourages the use of design technologies like CA.  Lastly, children pitch their designs or present to each other to test and finalise a co-created play space that represents their specific needs and which Dream Networks can deliver successfully. Eighty percent of the 450 children who have taken part in dream networks co-design programmes have shared an increased confidence in themselves or interest in design, engineering and STEM as a result of taking part. 

The organisation works with children in this way through two core programmes: Love Plays and Safe Haven. The first enables Dream Networks to address social, economic, and environmental needs through play spaces designed by children with the support of businesses. As part of the programme businesses donate their time and resources to support children and communities make their dreams of play a reality, and to answer three core needs: physical and cognitive development cultivated through outdoor play, practical and engaging application of STEM in school education and improved career aspirations, educating younger generations on sustainability. 

“We work with some great companies who want to make a positive impact through STEM,” Williams explains. “We help them to actively engage with the community around where they operate and provide volunteers from their own teams who help enable the children to go on incredible creative, interactive, and very empowering journeys. With Love Plays we often work in more marginalised communities, and a big part of the business opportunity is to provide positive role models to young people during our workshops, which is hugely important for social mobility. It’s always inspiring to hear how the volunteers talk about their ability to affect change and impact children’s lives. Fantastic volunteers from companies such as Atkins Realis, Tony Gee and Partners, New Cleo, BMT and Arup have been crucial to children feeling empowered to design.” 

In the Safe Haven programme play spaces are developed collaboratively with community members and built in public or residential spaces, providing local children with a safe and fun space to play that renews their environment. More recently Dream Networks have advised UK homebuilders on how to create social value and engage with their communities in a meaningful manner through co-design and play. The focus is providing play to wider communities, focusing on celebrating their culture and improving both the play facilities and economic development. Communities are involved in the build process, during which Dream Networks aims to create play features from 100% sustainable, local materials and incorporate the use of renewable energy sources. 

“We collaborate with architects, property developers, urban designers, and NGOs to provide community-led and sustainable solutions,” says Williams. “From our perspective, it’s about providing a way to help them actively participate in the community and get the best possible outcome. We do a lot of the work with regards to taylor our delivery of the projects and co design in a manner that really helps the children, young people and community to be creative and have their designs come to life.”

Since 2016 Dream Networks has brought co-designed, inclusive play spaces to more than 40,000 children across England and Africa. Its work, delivered by more than 200 volunteers dedicated to empowering children and communities, has seen thousands of creative ideas generated by children in its STEM programmes and more than 15 schools co-design and improve their play spaces. “I don’t think I’ve ever stopped playing,” says Williams. “Being playful has helped me jump from a career in aerospace engineering to nuclear fusion to producing software, and ultimately launch Dream Networks to help make play possible for all. We have such vivid memories of playing when we’re younger because play is so important to us all – play is a child’s human right and it’s fundamental to their development and to them thriving in life.”

dreamnetworks.co.uk