How does your organization contribute to Billund becoming the Capital of Children, where children learn through play and grow up to be creative world citizens? 

The goal of the LEGO Foundation is to re-define play and re-imagine learning. We want to build a future where learning through play empowers children to become creative, engaged, lifelong learners. This ambition is more critical than ever. Children grow up facing rapid change, global challenges, and a highly interconnected world, all of which affect their prospects.

Helping to make Billund the Capital of Children is a high priority for the LEGO Foundation, and our primary contributions currently include the following projects:

• Support for the work undertaken by CoC Playful Minds daily for the vision, including their great efforts concerning ‘Billund Builds' - a project that includes all schools and day-care facilities in Billund Municipality. 
• Supplementary training for all pedagogues in Billund Municipality via the ‘Play, Creativity, and Learning’ diploma module. 
• Introduction of a new educational approach at Vorbasse School, where they combine Learning through Play with project-based teaching. 

Experiences from our work in the Capital of Children also form part of the overall experiences we share with other projects and project partners in Denmark and around the world. Our Capital of Children activities is founded on international research and educational practice.

How do children benefit particularly from your contribution? 

From their very earliest moments, children have an amazing and natural potential to learn about the world through play. In recent decades, science has found increasing evidence that children learn constantly and that they establish connections and engage in their surroundings through positive playful experiences.

These innate abilities are the same competencies that enable children to become creative, committed, and life-long learners. However, to flourish, these skills must be nurtured, supported, and developed as the children grow, which is why the LEGO Foundation works to equip pedagogues and educators to facilitate playful learning and help strengthen children’s creative skills as well as their desire and ability to learn throughout life.

– Tina Marie Petrowsky, Initiative Lead, the LEGO Foundation

How do you see this linking to the Capital of Children vision? 

The LEGO Foundation wants to support an agenda where learning is naturally linked to a playful approach. Children have the best opportunities for learning and developing if they are allowed to create, be curious, and play. It is essential to growing these skills in a world characterized by rapid change, for the individual child as well as for society as a whole.

– Tina Marie Petrowsky, Initiative Lead, the LEGO Foundation