Educational activities whether for young toddlers or for those more ‘advance in age’ is one of the key provisions of Tek Ura. These activities embody the values of inclusion, empowerment and celebration as some of the most vulnerable are welcomed into our centre as new skills are nurtured and faces displaying delight at task accomplished walk back in to the world. In some instances, these values are expressed / experienced immediately as individual skills are learnt. Often however it is the long-term perspective that is more important, as many members of the community have no experience of schooling, the journey to becoming proficient takes times.
One of the programs that Tek Ura has been running for just over 18 months now is our ‘Parenting Together’ program. This program builds on our ‘Stay and Play’ program for parents and children. Parenting Together happens in a small café down the road from Tek Ura, a place with a small play area for the six to 10 kids that come along with their parents.
The themes for the program are identified by the group and then we as staff work to put together resources or discussion questions. This in its self has been an exciting collaboration, one in which there has been mutual learning, simply as presumptions about what parenting is are unpacked.
Recently we have been looking at what our role as a parent is in character development and what traits we hope to see develop in our children. With each week focusing on a specific trait we have asked the questions ‘What does …. (trait) practically look like? How are we as parents encouraging this trait? What can we do to support each other in seeing this trait develop in our children?
Discussions are lively to say the least and it has been great to see how young mums are developing in their confidence to open up about the challenges they face in parenting. For our most recent session it was a pleasure to see one of the mums lead the session and with all the sensitivity needed she gently talked with her peers in a way that she possibly never had before. Looking ahead at that long-term perspective it is our hope and our prayer that this program will continue to be a space, a time, when parents can come together to strengthen friendships to share their experiences and see examples of good parenting.