The Birth of Toy Diplomacy

The Year that Made an Impact

Twenty twenty began like many other years before it. Across the globe capital cities were lighting up the night sky ringing in a new year. Sydney was no different, except that this year was marred by a collective pain. For the first time in… certainly my lifetime… our city was questioning whether it was ethical or at the least appropriate to celebrate the New Year with fireworks given the devastating losses caused by bushfires around the country. Our regional, and some not-so-regional cities were not yet in the clear; setting fireworks off in the city just didn’t feel like the right way to celebrate. Discussions around climate change began to, quite literally, heat up and everyone was challenged to think about their own contribution to this issue, which, in the first months of 2020 seemed like the only thing we spoke about… until March.

You would have to be living under a rock if you hadn’t heard about coronavirus at some time or another in early 2020, but most of us soldiered on, not really giving it too much thought. I even flew to Japan for a family holiday in early February and coronavirus, whilst beginning to build a name for itself, didn’t really impact our two weeks overseas. It wasn’t until our second last day when we were asked to ensure we wear masks around the city that I began to feel a slight bit of panic. But pandemic level viruses didn’t affect us and just like SARS, MERS and Ebola, I knew Japan and Australia had a plan and we would be ok. So when the 17 March lockdown was announced, I was perplexed. Was this part of our plan? Or were we buying time to develop one?

While we spent the first few months setting up our home offices and limiting movement, across the waters, in the U.S.A, a young black man by the name of George Floyd was living his last moments on the ground with a police officer’s knee pressed into his back. It took nine minutes for the police officer  to eventually murder the man and his death set off a chain reaction across the globe. Black, indigenous and people of colour fought to have their stories heard and in the middle of the pandemic hundreds of thousands of people everywhere joined them in protest.

We hadn’t even hit the first half of the year and there was already so much to reflect on, to mourn and to action.

As the (soon-to-be) Toy Diplomacy team checked in for a Zoom call one Sunday afternoon, we discussed everything from Bushfires and climate change, to the impact of Floyd’s death on our own local indigenous communities and of course Covid-19 and the impact it was having on children in particular. In our discussions one thing was clear, we needed to do “something” to contribute, to help heal suffering communities and to repair our planet and ourselves. Our skill set is unique, in some ways we all specialise in creativity and problem solving – these are part of who we are – but this was a big problem and it needed a big solution.

The Rickety Bridge

Imagine you come to the edge of a bridge desperate to run from something; a fire, a pandemic, death, sadness, it could be any number of things. You make your first step on the bridge only to find it rickety and unsettled. 

In order to cross you need to embrace the journey and what is potentially on the other side, you’re here because you need to move forward and learn. 

Step one is to embrace the idea of moving forward.

As you cross, you explore your options… should you move faster, slower, hang on the edge to the poorly tied railing, or just move at a subtle pace? As you move through the motions of embracing and exploring, you become more confident in your footing, but are still yet to reach the other side and you’ve left the path far enough that you can’t turn back. You are now standing in the liminal space, the space between past and future, you’re right in the transition.

The liminal space is where creativity flourishes... because it must. Right in the middle of this rickety bridge is the unknown. If the wind blows, you could lose your footing, or better understand the wind, if water splashes you could become unstuck or better understand the water. 

The team was positioned here. Turn back and do nothing or move forward and better understand the world.

Toy Diplomacy

As a mother of three, COVID19 hit hard. Sure, I loved the extra time spent with family, but it was clear that my children, especially my youngest, were missing out on learning. My youngest has a severe intellectual disability and usually attends school within a class of five, a teacher, teacher’s aide, access to therapists and other support. At home we had two working parents, one working older brother and one full time student older brother. It was clear from the beginning that he was missing his routine.

We turned to play as a way to educate and to distract him from missing the routine of school. In fact, it was during this time that the idea of Toy Diplomacy was formed. The problem I had was that my youngest son did not play the same way others did and I needed to figure out how to remove this barrier to play. Together, my sons and I creatively came up with solutions that aimed to effectively remove these barriers, all the while realising that my youngest son wouldn’t be the only one experiencing this or other issues that prevent children of all abilities from being able to play their way. In consultation with different communities we realised that barriers to play were having enormous psychological and physiological consequences in children all over the world and as a group with a collective passion in creativity and creative learning we had to do something.  

The Birth of Toy Diplomacy

Toy Diplomacy is a consultative play-based company using play as a driver, in varied communities, to help them realise their key to navigating preparedness, social change, recovery, empowerment and resilience. The outcomes of Toy Diplomacy's exchange could result in the commercial offering of toys that meet varied community needs – this is our elevator pitch.

What that means is that the team decided to build a company that changes the way play is viewed and practiced. We hope that within five years time Toy Diplomacy will have helped hundreds of children play better, play more, play wildly, remove barriers to play and celebrate play. To do this we dare to play with anyone anywhere. 

To synthesise our plan, we wrote up a set of core values that will help us achieve our goals of play. These values can mean many things to many people but for me, they’re about the process with which we will achieve those goals.

CREATIVITY - applying creativity to all aspects of our doing and thinking

Creativity, to me, is about imagining what we thought to be impossible, and making it possible. It's about inventiveness and risk taking. But it’s also about the arts and the application of creative practices. Artists are fundamental to creative thinking and artists will lead the way in helping us deliver a more playful world.

STRENGTH - from our foundations to our outputs

When we talk about strength we’re talking about setting strong foundations to ensure sustainability. We want our outputs to have impact, so we aim never to shy away from hard conversations, or difficult subjects - if someone needs help to play, we want to be there for them.

KINDNESS - from inception to the final exchange

Nothing good comes from being unkind. We want every exchange to feel like a warm hug from a best friend. 

LEADERSHIP - from leading to being led 

We may lead our company into the future, but we can’t do this without listening to the communities we serve. 

TRANSPARENCY - from our purpose to our profit 

We always want to improve what we do, and we can’t do that unless we are candid and open to change. Transparency as a value holds us to account.

Toy Diplomacy started as a pursuit of change and resilience , it has grown into an idea that we hope will flourish with time. Please  join us to deliver play to communities through toys, art, events and more.

By Jax Hornjik