New toy helps teach about sustainable living
Developer hopes to encourage a move towards more sustainable, eco-friendly homes among younger generations
A new innovative toy collection designed to teach children about the importance of sustainable living is slowly making its mark in SA.
Officially launched in May this year, EcoHomee is a tangible activity for children to have fun with and learn from, but unlike the many plastic playthings and kick-knacks on the market, the collectible kit is made of cardboard, paper and biodegradable sticks.
Ecohome is the brainchild of KwaZulu-Natal resident Jacqueline McCarroll, who was inspired to create something both fun, educational and environmentally friendly.
My purpose behind EcoHome is to drive education as far as possible in the youth regarding pollution. Our environment is under severe threat as this problem is affecting all areas of our planet and I still feel that there is a severe lack of recycling and more so education around recycling and sustainable living,” said McCarroll, who developed EcoHome in 2019.
I wanted to address this problem early and directly by dealing with the youth and thus the concept of a build-it-whileyou-learn home was born. My goal is to get it into schools and retail as both a learning and a fun activity for children.”
Designed from scratch by McCarroll, EcoHome consists of a house pack with five pieces to assemble and 24 separate collectable items.
Each item for the small toy home, from the LED lamps to the compost pile, recycling bins and solar panels, is designed to show children how to live a sustainable lifestyle and also comes with an information card.
Set in a house frame, children “will get the flat pack kit which includes the houses, collectable items, and a waterless glue and they have to build the house and collectables themselves. The gem of EcoHome is our ““” information cards. This is also what I believe sets it apart from other collectable toy kits. These information cards are the glue that binds the learning and fun together as the goal is for children to read the cards and learn about each element they build,” said McCarroll.
She explained that when building each element of the home children had the opportunity to read about the benefits each item had and how they worked to make a home eco friendly. For example as they build the water tank they can read about how the water tank fits into the EcoHome frame and the benefits of having a water tank to harvest and conserve water.”
The goal, however, isn t for the toy to last forever, but for the lessons learnt playing with EcoHome to have a lasting affect and encourage a move towards more sustainable, ecofriendly homes among younger generations.
Children often get tired of a toy after a while and they will undoubtedly do the same with EcoHome but our hope is that they will keep the cards which they can also use for homework projects or reference at a later stage, said McCarroll, who also owns a company dedicated to creating energy efficient shower heads.
The idea for EcoHome actually came from a trip up to Cape Town during their water crisis wherein we realised that had there perhaps been better education about conservation we could have made better decisions about water wastage in our everyday lives.”
For now the EcoHome pack is available at nine SPAR stores in KwaZulu-Natal, but McCarroll hopes to see EcoHome available nationwide.
McCarroll said she was also raising awareness about EcoHome in schools through the D6 communicator, an app which offers a communication platform between schools and parents and is used by more than 2,000 schools. Originally I had planned to “launch EcoHome as a collectables campaign with retail stores, however, due to lockdown and the slow down of the marketing plan we went back to the drawing board and have now decided to make it a full flat pack with all the elements included,” said McCarroll.
I feel that this will be a better “option for schools as well because they can purchase it and children can build it in class
— no need to spend more to get the full experience.”
She said while lockdown had slowed down the process, she was in talks with 45 KwaZuluNatal-based schools to introduce EcoHome into classrooms, some of which had received packs to test out.
Im passionate about this “’ product and my goal is to have EcoHome sold in all regions in SA. I believe that this could be a major educational tool for teachers to use in their classrooms so I hope and to get it into schools as well as retail,” said McCarroll.