Fouad Caunhye, Emirates Regional Manager, Southern Africa
This November we celebrate National Children's Day in South Africa, as well as being World Children's Day on 20 November. Emirates Foundation has a number of projects supporting children. The Singakwenza NGO is a Kwazulu-Natal based initiative that trains practitioners, parents and caregivers at grassroots level to provide fun educational activities to enable young children to learn through play. They use household waste to make toys and teaching resources. We attended a "Waste 2 Toys" workshop on Saturday, and it was an eye-opening experience.
The end goal is to help transform empty crèches and homes into educational and stimulating environments for children. Emirates Airline Foundation's support for the two year training and mentorship programme has so far helped provide nearly 5000 young children with a strong foundation, preparing them for formal schooling. The organisation has helped trained 2931 adults who can now provide opportunities for playful learning for the 49800 children in their care.
Julie Hay, Founder and Director of Singakwenza, highlights the importance of early childhood development, especially for children under the age of five. When you look at the graph of the Sensitive Periods in Early Brain Development (below), it becomes glaringly apparent that children can miss the boat even before they have started school. Children in disadvantaged areas therefore need desperate intervention to make sure they do not stay disadvantaged. The beauty of this project is that the teachers, caregivers and parents can be helped to make sure their children are learning skills at their optimal learning age.
Sensitive Periods in Early Brain Development - Council for Early Childhood Development
The "Waste 2 Toys" workshop is a workshop that can be requested for a group of people who are involved with young children, and who are concerned about their future learning.
There is nothing like the allure of a package that arrives on your doorstep!
We have received our second package from My Smart Kid! I have won a year's subscription from The Mommy City in March, and Little Miss has really been enjoying opening them up and playing with the games and activity sets that's included.
Previously I could only give Mysmartkid away on the blog, but now we are getting all the fun stuff as well!
The latest box included the Jenga game, which is a really cool game for the whole family. Little Miss has been building the towers, as well as houses, and making the blocks fall like dominoes.
The Line-up game has also been a favourite for the past few days.
A video posted by Karen Du Toit (@karentoittoit) on
It is Mysmartkid's first birthday!
It seems they have a winning formula here!
Happy birthday, Mysmartkid!
This play-based educational initiative for children from birth to 6 years old has taken the local market by storm and revolutionised the way in which Early Childhood Development (ECD) is promoted in South Africa. Mysmartkid has quickly become a leader in this field through its “learn through play” philosophy.The subscription programme promotes school readiness through the use of age-appropriate toys, tools and activities and was designed with the help of a panel of experts who share their professional insights and expertise.
The winner of the Mysmartkid smartbox is Congratulations! Adele
Please send me your details that I can forward it to to the MSK store.
They will contact you to send an age appropriate smartbox!
Mysmartkid is a subscription based early childhood development programme.
It seems to be a good option to consider for a Christmas gift.
(Please let me know if you are using this?)
Mysmartkid is a subscription-based continuity programme at a cost of R295 every two months, which uses toys, tools and play-based activities to promote school readiness and the reaching of key developmental milestones in the field of early childhood development.
The Mysmartkid programme is also offered in Afrikaans as Myslimkind.
I’m giving one lucky reader the chance to win a x 1 Mysmartkid smartbox filled with educational toys and activities. All you need to do is comment on this post and tell me up to what age the programme caters for?
The winner will be announced on Wednesday, 19 November.
