Toys with a mission

|PIC2| Leftover loo rolls and yesterday’s newspapers: for the last eight years, BMS volunteer Janet Ivin has been transforming these simple, throwaway materials into products that can radically improve children’s lives.

Janet is an occupational therapist who specialises in paper-technology, which involves her crafting toys, games and chairs for children with disabilities such as cerebral palsy.

She used these skills during annual trips to Bangladesh to support the work of the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed in Dhaka.

The impact of the products on the children she meets has been remarkable.

Amazing

Last month, Janet swapped Asia for Africa and took her papier-mâché creations to Angola to train teachers there about how to make a range of items from cardboard, newspaper, toilet roll tubes and glue made from flour.

It was here that she linked up with BMS mission worker, Lynne Brown, who has helped establish the successful pre-school education programme, better known as PEPE in Angola.

Lynne takes up the story. “We had 20 people learning in the capital, Luanda, and 24 in Uige. It was a great course and amazing what we were able to produce in just a week at each place.

“I had e-mailed photos of the kind of thing we would be doing with Janet to Maria Antonia at Unicef and she contacted people from Minars, the government body responsible for pre-school.

Very keen

“We had two very keen representatives from Minars at each training session and Unicef would like to reproduce the course for other groups that work with children,” added Lynne.

“We are looking at the possibilities of those who learned this time, teaching others and are praying Janet would be able to come back next year to take us further in the training.

“This time we concentrated on games – maybe next time it will be stools and chairs.

Lynne concluded, “We are really grateful to Janet for coming out and her family who helped make it possible.”

Re-printed in Christian Today with the kind permission of BMS World Mission www.bmsworldmission.org