Being creative in today’s day and age is an asset, both for children as well as adults. Today’s child is the future of tomorrow. The world leaders, the next entrepreneurs, businessmen, astronauts, the next of everything. But while the world of tomorrow lies over the shoulders of children, are we nurturing them well? What about their emotions? Are we giving scope for their creativity to grow?
Living in the city, we rarely get proper opportunities to go out and spend some quality time with friends and families. Especially in Dhaka, a place that does not have enough resources and activities to enjoy free time. The scarcity of open spaces also raises the eyebrows of many. However, this is the struggle faced by the adult population of the fastest-growing megacity. For children, an age-appropriate activity list has way fewer options. A story that is well-known to children living in the cities of Bangladesh.
As the population of our country is growing exponentially, we are losing more and more free space. This is an extremely well-recognized fact in today’s day and time. Resulting in fewer and fewer fields for children to play in. Safety is another major concern in today’s world as well. So, despite the small number of open areas, there are parents who are always concerned about their children’s safety.
Development in children has a lot to do with their interaction with their environment and society. Much research has been done on child development and children’s psychological development. And in almost all these researches free and open environment has been deemed as a prominent and major requirement for a child.
Are there no activities for children? Don’t they do anything for fun? Yes, they do, but the list of activities is pretty small. Some open spaces in pre-schools, and schools, and going to a friend’s house are the overall means of interaction for them.
Saying that there are no outdoor activities for children will be a lie. There are a few, like- going to restaurants and movies, but none of these are appropriate for a child as they don’t pose any benefit to the overall development of the child.
Even during the weekend children don’t have anything prominent to do. The usual staying at home, playing games on phones, watching cartoons, or going out to restaurants are the only sources of entertainment. None of these allow a child to go out, talk and interact with people.
Usually, in our socio-economic structure, many parents don’t even realize that a child can learn through playing with children the same age as they are. Interacting with people, and being able to choose activities freely brings confidence in them.
Through games and play sessions, they learn to express, properly connect with emotions, empathize and lead in their own micro-groups. They learn teamwork while playing as well. And as parents and adults oftentimes we forget, how important games, playing, and running around are for children. And even when we do realize this, we end up giving up due to the lack of resources. Resources that will teach children through fun activities. This lack of resources became the driving force behind Tahmina Rahman Sathi on the path to forming Kids Time.
Tahmina’s journey started by volunteering at ‘Porua’, a project of Light of Hope, where her key work was to read books and select kid-friendly books from them. Her love for reading was the reason behind her coming to the project. While working with children Tahmina realized one thing- just as we want to create a good environment for parents
and teachers, why not create a good environment for children too?
Concentrating on this ‘why not’ Tahmina Rahman Sathi ended up designing a program particularly tailored to kids, and their overall development through fun activities and games. And then pitched her design to her higher-ups at Light of Hope. And thus Kids Time was born on 19th October 2019.
Kids Time is a space dedicated to children and their creativity. The very goal behind this is to give the children an environment to have fun and be creative. However, this is not the only factor that Kids Time works with. Another feature of Kids Time is its curriculum and the design and thought behind it.
Nowadays any child that is growing up in urban areas doesn’t get an interactive and engaging environment. Hence, when they go out, or it’s time for them to talk and interact with strangers (or even family members) they end up having a hard time talking and expressing themselves. Being able to talk and express ourselves is fundamental to a better life. And for a child to be able to communicate is part of their life skills and life lessons which they learn from these interactions and engagements.
We also have children who are very creative. But thanks to their overwhelming schedules, and structures for preschool, schools, etc. they end up losing this sense of creativity. In most cases the academies working with children only focus on the school’s curriculum, giving no room to a child’s creativity. Hence there is no creative freedom for them out there.
These are aspects that Kids Time wants to debunk and re-structure. So, the curriculum at Kids Time is designed while working with ECD specialists and developmental experts. Making the curriculum nurtures a child’s natural creative sense and teaches them important emotional and social skills.
Children cut their own paper, and craft their own things. The color and interact with children who are the same age as them. Children make their own stories and books as well. Don’t be alarmed. At Kids Time, children’s safety is of utmost priority. So anything they do is closely supervised. It is the goal of Kids Time to work and develop a creative sense, empathy, and social skills in children.
Kids Time is offering both online and offline courses on- Drawing, crafting, spoken English (Joy School English), and Singapore maths. Kids Time wants to bring world-class programs to you and your little one.
