Lilian Atieno

Bold Question: What if we unleashed the power of play?

Path to Metis: Lilian is a firm believer that in every child lies potential awaiting ignition. She maintains that the early childhood space requires creativity and innovation with regards to how programs are delivered in order to achieve holistic development and lifelong learning and that although children are born consumers, they have endless potential to becoming producers in any realm they are exposed to, including the digital world. They only need inspiration from an adult to ignite this potential.

Her work as a teacher and networks with individuals and NGO’s both globally and locally inspires her to drive to equip children, families, early learning facilitators and teachers with skills and viable opportunities necessary for the best start in life regardless of social strata.

Her passion for early childhood development and education has made her an advocate for competency-based and experiential learning as well as teacher capacity building to effectively apply a play-based approach in teaching.

She is the founder of Toy Library Association of Kenya (TLA-KE), a non-governmental organization that promotes children’s play right and play-based learning using the Toy Library Model. This initiative saw her superintend the first toy library in the country (OMEP Kenya Toy Library). The Toy Library model provides high quality early learning play opportunities, making play more objective and skilful. Lilian believes that if every child had access to a quality toy library, he or she would have the required foundation to make it through formal schooling, continue with their studies and eventually contribute to the economic development of our country.

It is her vision to have a toy library within the reach of every child. She serves in the International Toy Library Association world board as the Africa Link, in a bid to disseminate toy library concept across Africa.

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