– to mark National Play Day

FUN Park Rentals in collaboration with the Ministry of Education will be hosting its third Annual National Play Day tomorrow at the Ministry of Education Ground on Carifesta Avenue.

The theme for this year’s event is ‘Celebrating Children’s Right to Play!’
According to Acting Assistant Chief Education Officer (Nursery), Samantha Williams, play time has been significantly on the decline, with the focus more on academics at school, and parents being too busy to find the time to play with their children at home.
She also cited the rampant use of technology as another cause for the decline, adding that it’s because the Ministry of Education understands the importance of balance in the education of children that it seized the opportunity to collaborate with Fun Park’ on this initiative.

Said ‘Fun Park’ CEO and National Play Day founder, Athalyah Yisrael:
“A vision backed with confidence will allow you to change the world.” True to her word, in 2014 she had this vision to deliver excitement to children, which is how she came to found Fun Park Rentals, where they deliver excitement to children with bouncy castles and trampolines.

And in doing that, she found that there was a little problem, and that was that children were not spending enough time playing outdoors; that they were too caught up indoors logged on to technology.

“Playing outside is beneficial for a child’s development. It helps in developing their minds; helps them to exercise social skills, and it helps them to be physically healthy, among other things,” Ms Yisrael said, adding:

“So, in 2016, we launched play-day in Guyana, and we collaborated with the Ministry of Education because we see it as a national event. The more Guyanese children play, the better Guyana will be.”
She shared that a new bit of excitement has been added to the programme this year, and that they’ve also made provision for adults to also participate in the games instead of coming and watch their children.

To formally launch National Play Day 2018, ‘Fun Park’ delivered memorable play and bouncy castle fun to the orphans at the Red Cross Children’s Convalescent Home in D’Urban Backlands on Thursday, as their way of taking play to less fortunate children, and demonstrating how play can improve children’s social skills as well as help them learn how to work in groups, to share, to negotiate, and better resolve conflicts.