Renzo, the toymaker in London

"A lot of work still need to be done before children's folklore can be recognised as valuable part of the Human Heritage"Renzo the toymaker

I am an experienced and freelance teacher-toymaker and playful website designer, running toy-making workshops in a variety of settings and contexts, such as schools (in classrooms and with coffee morning groups of parents), children’s libraries, community centres, playgrounds, events in the park, venues for families, children's play centres, museums and training for play-workers and teachers.
My job is concerned with finding and creating easy ways to make toys with kids and adults, but also to link them with the education world. In fact, I consider toymaking activities as a good way to introduce creative learning in different subjects like basic science, history and geography, Physical Education, arts, languages and Global Citizenship issues (as “waste education”).
My toy-making activity is related with the Children's Natural Rights, and through it children have the opportunity to express themselves,their interaction with the others, their feelings of joy, and true participation into the children's folklore; to learn basic knowledge of the world and how it function, to improve basic hand skills and to adopt a necessary critical views on their habitat.

Children's accessibility is my focus and priority because it allow children to be indipendent in making on their own the same or similar toys - and with the practice - maybe inventing something new.
These kind of toys - as testimony of kids’ play culture or children's folklore across the whole world - tell us about the silent culture of the poorest people, not adequately represented in toy museums but really capable of attracting our sense of magic. Like travellers into time and space, these playthings are links with different cultures and different generations; and with their simplicity, they give us a chance to understand a way to think and make a better world. And what is the most important they work, children have fun, and these playthings can be recycled and fixed by the same players who also made them.

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He has had an Enhanced Disclosure Check within the last three years and I can produce evidence of this on request; other references and project documentations are available on request.
London, April 2008

List of my professional experiences in London - LINK