Mandela Day of Play: Lessons in Lasting Change

The DO MORE FOUNDATION leveraged Mandela Day‘s message "It is in Your Hands", inviting over 500 volunteers to devote their 67 minutes to renovating under-resourced ECD centres across seven provinces. The campaign reached 192 centres, benefiting roughly 9 600 children.

Central to the campaign was the idea that play is foundational in early childhood—a period where 50% of ECD programmes struggle to offer even 30 minutes of free play daily . Play supports motor, cognitive, social emotional, and executive skill development, which are vital for long-term educational success. Alarmingly, 55% of South African 4 and 5 year-olds in early learning don’t meet expected milestones.

Enhancing Play-Based Learning Through Infrastructure

Play is serious work.Campaigns that focus on play are foundational to unlocking a child’s cognitive, emotional and social development. The campaign focused on tangible, play-oriented upgrades, such as sandpits, reading corners, bike tracks, imaginative space installations, sensory zones, play kitchens, gardens, and painted activity areas .

These investments in physical spaces directly support play-based learning, providing children with access to stimulating, open-ended experiences that foster creativity, coordination, and problem-solving.

The Power of Partnerships

Our work thrives because of the backbone role we play in bringing together NPOs, business, faith groups and government in shared purpose. The Mandela Day of Play campaign was no different. We mobilised 1 525 partners to contribute to staff volunteers and financial contribution to materials and logistics, which enabled collective impact at scale.

From identifying centre needs to project execution, multi-sectoral partners bring multi-sectoral expertise. Businesses bring resources, networks, and specialist skills, allowing DMF to tackle interlinked issues more effectively than they could alone.

Real Stories: On-the-Ground Impact

Concrete examples underscore the campaign’s community traction included:

Rustenburg team painted playhouses and tyre tracks, built play kitchens and car benches, and planted gardens.

Diepsloot volunteers painted indoor/outdoor spaces, donated toys and books, and prepared meals for children.

Sasolburg crew installed swings, fixed taps, painted murals, and created gardens.

These activities demonstrate that volunteers renovated spaces and they cultivated community care, visibility, and sustained local engagement.

Lesson Implication for Future Campaigns

Community co-design: Consulting centre principals ensured upgrades suited local needs—should remain core in planning.

Volunteer-led momentum: Harnessing corporate energy led to high engagement—scale by diversifying volunteer sources.

Partnership diversity: A broad sponsor base amplifies reach—establish recurring commitments and new partnerships.

Play-based framing: Tied activity directly to early learning evidence—future messaging should highlight outcomes, not just novelty.

Storytelling power: Local stories sparked pride and shared purpose; invest in ongoing storytelling and media amplification.

Strategic Roadmap for Future Campaigns

Standardise needs assessment: Conduct baseline evaluations of ECD centres’ play and learning environments to guide targeted interventions.

Monitor and measure impact: Track developmental outcomes over time, like motor skills, social interaction, and pre-literacy.

Deepen partnerships: Extend collaborations to include government, NGOs, and academic experts in child development.

Scale storytelling: Capture and share volunteer and educator experiences through digital media, reinforcing campaign impact.

Iterative innovation: Use learnings to refine future Mandela Day themes.

The 2024 Mandela Day of Play campaign by DMF exemplifies values in action—leveraging the symbolic power of Mandela Day to drive tangible, developmental change for young children. With play-centered infrastructure, multi-sector mobilisation, and grassroots storytelling, the campaign not only enriched environments for nearly 10 000 children but also yielded a replicable model rooted in collaboration, co-design, and continuous learning.

As DMF enters future phases (like the 2025 climate resilience initiative), this campaign’s foundational experiences point the way toward strategic scaling, impact measurement, and values-aligned expansion—ensuring each Mandela Day deepens its legacy with South Africa’s youngest generation.