Starting kids off right means, providing kids with knowledge, coaching and training thus to help them make knowledgeable decisions concerning their lives as they grow up.
One of the Ke Moja programme design to cater for children is a KeMoja Puppet programme. In this form, puppeteer (coaches) us puppet as a way to deliver information to children and help them retain it.
This programme has been developed to educate pre-school children around 7 topics, 8 puppet shows with activities that are in the puppet manual.
Puppet can be an engaging and useful way to get to children, However as for new facilitators using puppets may not be something they are familiar or comfortable with doing especially if no training is providedfor this reason African Youth Development Fund gives yearly training to all the puppet coaches. The training upskill the coaches with a how to design and make a puppet,facilitating the topics, presenting the show to kids to operating a puppet.
Educating a child about the dangers of substance abuse can be effective however children forget quickly and some struggle with paying attention to such heavy information. Puppets is a good tool to get young children’s attention. Children view puppet more like a peer than an adult, so their interactions with puppets match that feeling.
During training, facilitators are made aware that the fight against substance abuse and helping the African youth reach their full potentialstarts off with the kids.As puppets allows children to engage in imaginatively play that differ from dolls and other figures. By the end of the training the facilitators are left feeling ready and confident about the puppet programme and skilled on how to deliver the content to kids and also dealing with children.
The training is a must to take place, because as doable and easy as it looks to work with kids and presenting them, those who have done will tell otherwise therefore the training plays an important role in making it easy to facilitate to kids. With the skills and boost needed given, there’s nothing stopping the facilitators from going forward with the fight against substance abuse.