They say responsibility begins early and to perfect your craft, you have to hone it early too. As a teacher, Martine Uwacu Karekezi believes there are skills and attributes that can’t be passed on in a classroom.
A teacher by profession, artist by passion, and publisher by choice, Karekezi has taken it upon herself to help teach children important chores and skills at a young age, at a time when parents are too busy to do it themselves in this fast-paced world.
If she is not teaching French at Greenhills Academy, Karekezi dedicates her time outside class to teach children key skills that will help turn them into responsible teens, who in turn will grow into responsible adults.
ALSO READ: Parenting: What life skills are you giving your child?
The 41-year-old single mother of three founded Sankofa Creatives Ltd., a centre to train children in 2017 after she felt there was a gap in storytelling and reading. She also runs a publishing house and art studio in the same place.
As a teacher, she needed books that can help tell children stories but they were either not there or not enough.
As a French teacher, she needed illustrative storybooks that can interest children but they were not readily available.
Frustrated, she started writing children’s storybooks and working with other people but still, she wasn’t satisfied. After authoring about 16 books, she decided to start her own publishing house.
"As an author of children’s books, I started Sankofa Creatives so that I can be publishing my own story books to inspire children and to make stories available to help teachers in teaching languages.
"When I published for the first time with local publishers, I was not satisfied with the freedom I had on my artwork,” she says, explaining how she came up with the idea to start her own.
ALSO READ: Project to boost children’s life skills in three districts unveiled
She wanted the flexibility to be more creative and bring her ideas to life. Today she has published about 47 titles and is still going, in Kinyarwanda, French, and English
Tapping into old values for a better future
Beyond just publishing children’s books, Karekezi believes there are traditional Rwandan values that can be passed on to the children, beyond just giving them an education.
Through her years of teaching, Karekezi noticed that these values cannot be obtained in class, among them taking responsibility and doing chores that nurture a child’s behaviour and discipline.
Naturally, these are skills learned through doing, and under normal circumstances, they can be passed on to children at home, either by parents or guardians and adults, but due to busy schedules, this is not happening.
The only time they get at home, they will either be buried in books, doing revision and homework. No time to play or learn chores. Any spare time is spent on TV and gadgets, connected to the internet.
This, according to Karekezi, will only lead to a generation of people who don’t know how to do anything, like cook, bake, clean, or grow plants. They believe everything is bought from the supermarket.
ALSO READ: Habiyaremye on instilling life skills into basketball youngsters
It is a calling that really simply started with the desire to read stories for children. After reading stories with the little ones, she thought to herself, "Maybe we can start doing some of these things we read in the stories.”
That would make it even more fun. She had a studio in the same premises in Gikondo, then, and noticed children learn by observing and they want to do exactly what they see.
She started teaching them how to paint. They picked an interest in art. In 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, she started receiving children when schools reopened, starting with a small number of five.
As time went on, she started to see more children coming to the centre, at one point reaching 36 children in total. Today, on average she receives about a dozen children to teach over the weekend, and on Saturday, and an average of 20 daily during holidays.
With the number of parents interested in bringing their children to learn a skill or two increasing, she moved to a bigger space in Kacyiru, for more convenience and also increased the number of activities children can do, based on their age.
Karekezi had an agreement with local leaders to allow children from less privileged households to also come and learn with others in the afternoon.
They came in hordes. She receives over 100 children from the neighbourhood coming to read books. Currently, she is looking for an even bigger space so that more children from the community can be accommodated.
At the centre children are taught to cook and bake, gardening, painting, and storytelling. Karekezi believes these activities enhance how children learn to do things and improve their language skills.
She trained two more teachers to work as her assistants and often gets adults to talk to the children. The children work in groups to develop teamwork skills. It whets their appetite to learn.
Learning from doing
During the exercises, children are taught to be responsible. "If it is a fire, we tell them it can burn, a knife can cut someone if they don’t handle it well,” Karekezi says.
By knowing that, the children learn how to be careful and responsible from the onset. They are also taught protective skills. To put something in the oven, you have to wear gloves.
If it is a meal they are preparing, they are taught for example how to clean vegetables and other foods before cutting them. They know what to play with and what not to play with.
"Those who are big enough, 8- to 12-year-olds, know how to put things in the oven. We also tell them to learn to ask for help if they can’t do something by themselves. It is another value we teach them,” Karekezi says.
Through these activities, children become firm, develop their muscles and become physically active, get connected with reality, and also learn the source of things.
Reading on the other hand sharpens their minds while physical activities teach them how to be hands-on and less vulnerable.
ALSO READ: Why is being social an important life value to children?
Karekezi says that in some cases children don’t get an opportunity to hone these skills because they are either buried in academic activities at home and school.
However, these particular activities are known to automatically stimulate even academic performance.
Minus these activities, children’s creativity is suppressed. In baking, for example, children display their best creativity and become proactive, right from deciding the recipe, to mixing the ingredients and the final product.
Karekezi believes this is a right all children deserve yet many parents continue to be in denial, sticking to the ‘academic routine’ as the most important aspect for a child.
Through these activities, children learn other skills such as being patient, sharing, and working together. They also learn to value things.
"They also get to know that next time I won’t throw a piece of cake given to me in the dustbin because I don’t like it. They know how much work that goes into baking a cake,” Karekezi says.
Karekezi says that a few days into the creative course, parents get surprised when children return home looking to take on responsibilities and chores. Their manners greatly improve too.
"When they leave the centre, they go back home and say, Mom, can I help you to make our breakfast today? What do you want us to prepare for you?”
Karekezi believes that beyond sending children to pursue academic excellence, these values of work, responsibility, and discipline need to be inculcated in children when they are still young.
To her, that is the only way we can build a strong and sustainable society anchored on strong values.
She notes that some children will grow up not knowing where or how food is grown, and not get the chance to touch the earth and connect with it.
"That is the only way they will grow up to take care of the earth because they know it is a source of food and life.” Karekezi encourages parents and guardians to make time to engage in chores with children whenever they get the chance.