toys

"Ever since I was a kid, I've had a strong desire to travel all over Brazil, to get to know its diverse realities firsthand. When I'd travel with my parents, my eyes fixated on the landscape passing by, and I'd imagine myself visiting each little house on the side of the highway. I'd invent names and destinies for those kids with barefoot bodies whose eyes gazed into the wind, and for those old folks with crooked canes who spent hours on crooked benches in the shade of jacaranda trees . . . The childhoods and games in each place I passed were what always attracted me the most." - Renata Meirelles, How it all Began, Projeto BIRA

A few years ago - when I was getting started with BRINQ - I was thrilled to come across the work of Renata Meirelles and David Reeks, a Brazilian American couple that was working hard to document and share the toys and games of the Brazilian Amazon. Their stories of what they discovered and shared were truly inspirational and I had hoped to meet up with them on one of their trips back to the U.S. Unfortunately the timing didn't work out and I have since moved on to other projects, leaving my task of building a global toy chest sadly neglected. However a recent discussion on the Omidyar Network about recycled crafts and toys sent me looking for David and Renata's work once again and I was delighted to see what they've been doing in all this time.

We love a good idea when we see it, especially when it's just like one of our own! Check out World
Play, a non-profit founded to share the diversity of toys and play among communities throughout the world. Sound familiar?

http://www.WorldPlay.org/

We love a good idea when we see it, especially when it's just like one of our own! Check out World Play, a non-profit founded to share the diversity of toys and play among communities throughout the world. Sound familiar?

Arvind Gupta, the winner of India's first National Award for Science Popularisation, has taught hands on science and toy-making workshops to thousands of children throughout India. His trash-to-treasure lessons have been written up in numerous books, freely available for download.

"Twenty-five years ago, I discovered that if children see a scientific principle incorporated into a toy, they understand it better." - Arvind Gupta

At BRINQ, we've long been fans of magic man and toy tinker Arvind Gupta and his Little Toys, so we think it's high time we do our part in sharing his work with the world!

Projeto BIRA (Brincadeiras Infantis da Região Amazônica) is all about playful exchange: an effort to document and share the games and play cultures of Amazonian communities in the north of Brazil.Projeto BIRA (Brincadeiras Infantis da Região Amazônica) is all about playful exchange, an effort to document and share the games and play cultures of Amazonian communities in the north of Brazil:

This project is totally focused on games that are carried out by children, in areas where spontaneity is the principal means of communication and where the forest and its embellishments are the source for materials and challenges that motivate a diverse range of actions. These actions are easily recognized by parents, grandparents, and ancestors who play along in some form, even if it's only through a look that conveys the recognition: "Ahhh, I know how to play that." [StreetPlay.com]

Changing lives and making toys in the Monte Azul ("Blue Hill") favela in São Paulo, Brazil.

In English, to feel "blue" signifies being depressed or sad, but in Portuguese "azul" (blue) signifies the opposite emotions of well-being and happiness. At first glance then, a sea of gray-brown shanty houses and slums seems like the least appropriate place to be named with this color of hope, but the Monte Azul (“Blue Hill”) favela in São Paulo carries the name regardless, and since 1975 the Associação Monte Azul has been proving that the name fits.