Grants available to fund Nüdel karts and rovers for flood impacted ECEC services

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) services impacted by the floods in Queensland and New South Wales have been invited to apply for full and partial funding for Nüdel Karts and Rovers. 

Nüdel resources are deconstructable, mobile play carts that can be reconfigured in endless ways to encourage self-directed learning. They contain research-backed specially selected materials to stimulate children’s development.

Charity Playground Ideas is keen to support services who have been impacted by the flooding through the grants of up to $5,000 while also offering the broader ECEC community the opportunity to help donate a Nüdel to a school or early learning service which has lost everything. 

“All their resources rotten and washed away, sometimes even their floorboards. What’s worse is that many were unable to get flood insurance (because of previous floods) and are needing to start from scratch which means a very slow recovery,” Marcus Veerman, Founder & CEO Playground Ideas & Nüdel Kart said. 

“To make things 100 times worse, many children haven’t just lost a place to learn, to play and to socialise, but many of them have also lost their homes as well. All of this creates a cocktail of fear, uncertainty and toxic stress for fully grown adults, which can be devastating – but to a child, the effect is felt on a much deeper biological level.”

“Six months of stress is a fraction of an adult’s life, but to a child, six months is an eternity. Six months is an opportunity to build billions of neurons and connections in the brain. Stress fills the body with hormones like cortisol which puts children into fight-or-flight mode and dramatically delays their development which has life long effects.”

Mr Veerman urged supporters to act quickly to donate, and for those eligible services to get in touch and apply for a grant to get children back on the path of play. 

Grant applications can be made here. For more information about Playground Ideas see here.