Reinventing the play of children in maputo city and province during Covid-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, discovered in China in late 2019, quickly spread throughout the world, imposing new challenges to people's lives. Mozambique was no exception, having to implement several virus prevention and containment measures, declaring a state of emergency in March 2020. Therefore, some measures such as the closure of schools, social distancing, and confinement, among others, have brought significant changes to people's lives, particularly children's. With the measure "stay at home", children found themselves deprived or restricted from doing what they love most: playing, especially playing outside (on the streets, in the neighborhood, at school, etc.). With this article, we intended to identify what kind of strategies did the children and their caregivers adopt to reinvent play in the context of COVID-19. By accessibility, we identified some families whose households included children between the ages of 6 and 14. We obtained data through semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation and free conversations with adults and children. The study showed that caregivers began to organize a routine for the children that included play, study, and household activities. Confinement in some cases allowed greater cohesion between parents and children, but also some challenges such as the increasing use of cell phones, television and other forms of technology by children to the detriment of other forms of play.