Play and curiosity, its been engrained in our systems since the minute we were born, yet somewhere down the road there was a disconnect.
Play is adventure, play is the unknown, play is the building block that shapes you into the person you become. Fast forward to 2019 and the two founders of Amped2Play, Ozzie Sawicki and Brandi Heather have made it their prerogative to instill those basic fundamentals of play back into society.
Meeting by coincidence - although it can be said that there are no coincidences in life - Sawicki and Heather crossed paths. After igniting a conversation, Heather asked Sawicki to speak at an adaptive conference that was being run out of Red Deer College. He agreed, and the two kept in touch well after that day. Eventually a conversation ensued of how there is a generation of children and young adults who have gone into a work environment never being exposed to play.
"The feeling we had was a lot of those kids, because they weren't exposed to natural play, haven't been exposed to risk or adversity and can't cope with challenges. So, we really dug in and looked at what is happening out there from a research point of view," said Sawicki.
He explains that research has shown that children aren't developing in a natural process that allows them to be functional human beings.
"Developmentally it's a missing piece that they're supposed to play, they're supposed to fall off a rock, they're supposed to trip over a tree and smack their head. It's part of the human being figuring out 'how do I survive'," explains Sawicki.
The pair went back and forth on some key elements that they felt strongly about and created the business Amped2Play. Their one underlying goal is: Play. The foundation focuses on offering play based strategies in education, community and at a corporate level."Bloomberg did a study where they interviewed 1,500 CEO's and 85 per cent of them said we are failing because we can't find creative people. So its gone through a full generation now from kids to the work world so that's where we said, business wise this will work," said Sawicki.
Amped2Play has three focal points. One being diversity and inclusion and is the bread and butter of Amped2Play. Sawicki says it creates a layer where everyone is unique, everyone is different and everyone needs to learn to work together. Fear is a natural piece of discovery and by connecting individuals through programs they offer, this in turn, helps build confidence and compassion which flourishes into education, adaptation and inclusion.
On the kid's side they have created two programs, Play6S (Play-Success) and Ramshackle Play. Sawicki said the reason they choose the name ramshackle is because it means chaos and that framework of play started back in World War II. He said bombed out buildings and areas acted as play places for children because they had nothing else. This was their natural environment and they made do with it.
"This needs to be a safe environment, but not a dictated environment so we set up a field with old bath tubs, tires, two-by-fours, hammers, saws, everything and we tell them just go play, go discover and do whatever you're going to do. We are multi generational so it's not just kids that play it's parents and grandparents. They should all play together because they need to learn about each other, from each other and create that sense of connectivity between generations because we've lost a lot of that," he said.
At the community and corporate level there is a professional team which trains and runs the programs. On the education level, they meet with teachers and explain how the play structure will pan out. Sawicki adds that some teachers are reluctant at first because they are trained to be risk averse. He says it doesn't take long before they are on board and notice the immediate benefits through engaging in play.
"On the day of the event the teachers are observers and we ask them to observe and tell us what you see, what curriculum do you see happening, do you see science, do you see math, do you see social studies, language and on and on. They see everything because kids have to work together in a social context, they have to measure to build what they are building. They build the craziest things, so the teachers are observing curriculum. We've never had a single child that didn't partake. Some may watch for 20 minutes because they're unsure but then they get involved," explains Sawicki. "They are in a moment in time where time no longer matters, that what they're doing is creative, it's encompassing and they are learning a million things in that moment that are going to make them better human beings."
Currently Amped2Play is in the middle of talking to schools around Cochrane about funding and getting their programs out there. They are also trying to build their presence on the community side and will be testing out their corporate strategies come the new year in California. The hope is to eventually create a level of success within the organization that will carry forward to all aspects, whether that be through the programs they offer, the training and certificates individuals can obtain or just bridging the gap of how imperative it is to have play in every generation.
