Childhood is a sacred time. Children have the right to be raised in an environment founded on love and nurture - where the child’s physical, emotional and spiritual well-being is acknowledged and respected.
Play, a fundamental right in every child’s life, is not necessarily a given anymore.
Today it is a growing trend that children will be raised in the childcare environment – in fact it is almost an expectation. Along with this the young child and his ability to play are very much at risk. Many children no longer have the ability to play independently and are reliant on adults to provide entertainment or ‘exemplars’ of learning.
The child is a genius and through the simple, yet complex realm of play the child lays the foundations for life.
Our task as educators, and here we naturally include the parent, is to provide the ‘possibility’ for the child to learn about the world. We provide this possibility by offering examples of life worthy of imitation.
For some time we have been pondering the question how we could use our experience of over 20 years of working with young children to make a difference, to advocate for the young child; to raise consciousness to the real needs of the child.
Thus the idea of a documentary about the play of young children was born; showing a picture of what is possible in a world where play has almost disappeared.
Cloud South Films and Television were approached to investigate the possibility of such a project.
Tom Burstyn of Cloud South spent many days filming at Awhina, managing to beautifully capture the essence of children at play in the child care setting.
Even though Awhina Day Nursery provided the “vehicle” for the filming, the documentary will be independent from Awhina.
Funds which were originally earmarked to cover the costs of this project did not eventuate and the project came to a halt.
Having all this creative material in "the can", so to speak, and not being able to continue with the post production of the film is a real tragedy.
Tom produced a 2.5 minute promo for us to show to people interested to make a donation towards the finishing of this project. The promo can be viewed by following this link:
The approximate cost to finish the documentary is NZ$60,000.
If you wish to make a financial contribution towards the completion of this important documentary, please contact us via this website in the first instance.
We will then send you a pledge form.
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