Need for Meaningful Activities for Youth

Need for Meaningful Activities for Youth

Posted on February 21st 2014 by Sadia Wali

         

      Sixteen-year-old Ahmed has great inspiration and passion for writing stories, drawing cartoons and making landscape. “That’s what I love to do!” he says, while making a sketch of a village life. He expresses his feelings in form of art and story writing. He engages himself in such activities to make his life exciting and meaningful.

Meaningful activities are often done for enjoyment, pleasure and fun. Simultaneously, it is imperative that these leisure time activities must be meaningful and enjoyable. The scholars of Islam have emphasized the importance of lawful recreation to the healthy development of a person’s character. Al-Ghazali writes:

If the child is forbidden to engage in play and forced to spend his time in perpetual study, this will result in his heart dying, his intelligence waning and his manner of living becoming so wretched that he will seek from it any escape he can find.”

“After completing his bookwork, a child should be allowed to play in a nice manner, so that he can relax from the fatigue of his studies. His play should not tire him out. If the child is forbidden to engage in play and forced to spend his time in perpetual study, this will result in his heart dying, his intelligence waning and his manner of living becoming so wretched that he will seek from it any escape he can find.”

Our youth is lagging behind in knowledge, enterprise and productivity. Teenagers are not making fruitful use of their time – due to unproductive habits, they are suffering from such psychological disorders as anxiety, depression, insecurity, fear, anger and aggression. These anti- social behaviours compel a frustrated person either to commit suicide or engage in violent acts.  Furthermore, the increasing immorality and vulgarity of youth is pushing them towards anarchy and darkness.

The question is: how can a frustrated person relieve his stress? What kind of activities will facilitate mental and physical health and improving the quality of life?

Engaging in recreational activities not only helps in staying healthy but also relieves psychological stress and develops a bright and healthy personality.

 Effective and Revitalizing Activities:

• Morning walk and exercise help to relax, give a soothing effect to nerves and reduce stress. These are the best activities which refresh one’s senses and make one feel light again.
• Good reading habits include reading newspapers, magazines and books. Reading an interesting book motivates a teenager to develop reading habit and enhances their learning and vocabulary.
• Through writing articles, stories and diary entries, one can convey his emotions and sentiments.
• Both indoor and outdoor games and sports, such as swimming, skating, cricket, football, hockey, volleyball, squash, tennis and badminton, help to maintain physical health as well as emotional and psychological stability of an individual.                      In the Sunnah, we see the companions of Prophet Muhammad (sa) participating in many different forms of activities. They engaged in such sports as running races, horse racing, wrestling and archery. They spent time in telling jokes and enjoyed lighthearted conversations. This helps to build up an active, positive personality and improve interpersonal relations.
• Many teenagers are engaged in arts and crafts activities. Hobbies, such as drawing, sketching, painting, knitting, making artificial jewelry and other items from clay, are excellent for utilizing time effectively. Arts and crafts activities also enhance the self-confidence of a young person.
• Teenagers in emotional distress should take an adult education class or a course at any institution. Participation in education classes motivates and inspires them to be optimistic and to adopt a positive way of thinking. These types of social gatherings give them opportunities to relieve stress and build new relationships.
• Young people can engage in long and short term training for honing their skills. They will not only learn but also gain motivation for utilizing their skills.
• Gardening has many benefits – it can ease stress for people, who have been diagnosed with depression and persistent low mood. Being surrounded by fresh flowers and plants helps in achieving peace of mind.

There is a dire need for young people to stop engaging in unproductive habits, which waste their time. Engaging in recreational activities not only helps in staying healthy but also relieves psychological stress and develops a bright and healthy personality.

Sadia Wali is a Research Fellow at Educational Research and Development Centre (ERDC).           

Posted in Blog, Positive Parenting   | Tagged activities, arts and craft, emotional stress, exercise, Full Article, games, Gardening, Halal entertainment, healthy, healthy lifestyle, Hiba Blog, Hiba Magazine, hobbies, Islamic Magazine, Muslim lifestyle magazine, personality development, Productive, Reading, recreation, skills, writing, Youth –

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Book Review – KARACHI, YOU’RE KILLING ME!

By Sadia Wali

 

Being an emotional and sensitive lady, I always have great inspiration to read the piece of novel that deeply interprets women issues and problems, romance, culture and traditions. One of the important aspect of choosing Saba Imtiaz novel, KARACHI, YOU’RE KILLING ME to read as it is entirely feminist. It is a story of insider heart, how a young journalist coped up with her career and personal life, how her emotions were crushed and how she avoided stressful thoughts and managed to live a normal life. Passionate by nature, she decided to change the world by being a journalist.

KARACHI, YOU’RE KILLING ME  is a Bridget Jones’s Diary meets the Diary of a Social Butterfly, “a comedy of manners in a city with none,” as Saba describes it. A female voice narrating real life events in form of a diary which follows a sensational beginning which continued till end. Every moment is full of adventure and thrill which kept the readers intact.

The story revolves around a young journalist, Ayesha who works for a newspaper as a reporter, hopping from rickshaws to taxis, covering strange and unique stories. Her life merely moves around work whether it was suicide bombings, visit to literature festival, the Bhutto family tomb in interior Sindh, the-top fashion show or interviewing gangsters in the gang-ridden neighborhood of Lyari. She is always there on the spot with full vigor and passion.

Ayesha’s survival is heavily dependent on her friends Zara and the best friend, Saad who lives in Dubai but returns frequently to meet her.  Ayesha's own career and abysmal personal life often make her feel empty and numbed and she yearned for the company of old friend Saad whose shoulder she cries on whenever she faces mishap in her life. At various moments in the novel, she expressed her deep emotions about Saad.

Once she said, “It is kind of heartwarming to have someone care about you.”

Saad is my oldest friend, someone who I’m going to love unconditionally until the day I die”

“As teenagers, we were far too involved with our own convoluted love lives. I turned off the lights and stagger into my room feeling the giddiness that comes from using the word boyfriend.”

While reading the novel, I felt that one of the Overwhelming aspects of the novel is the characters playing their part in a casual manner whether it is party-hopping through the city's elite Clifton neighborhood, or visiting Mocca Café for coffee or getting liquor, cigarettes and drugs. These scenes switch the tone of the novel from despondency to feeling of joy. In fact,   the inner thoughts and feelings of Ayesha kept the readers occupied of what shall happen next.

As the story slowly reached its peak, every moment and every act turned out to be more spellbinding and captivating. As Ayesha faced two romantic misadventures, she felt dejected and totally broken. 

Her words touched my heart.

“Why can I never have a functional relationship with a non-troll like human?”I’ll be that girl who everyone invites to dinner out of pity because Iam unloved and broken.”

There are more sensational feelings of Ayesha that really moved me as I felt my body shuddering and I unable to control my emotions.

“My heart feels heavy, and my breath keeps catching in my throat. I need to cry and get this out of my system. It feels like I have failed at everything. For years I have focused my energy and time on my career and time on my career because trying to work at relationships with douchebags like Hasan and then Jamie just did not seem to make sense”

At last Ayesha took the most important decision of her life i.e. to leave her fourteen year old job.  - How she felt? “You are a failure. You have done nothing in the past – jeez – ten years. My life lies ahead of me, suddenly feeling like a really, really tediously long time.” 

The last scene Ayesha was informed by Saad’s mother – he is going to the airport. He’s set up a meeting with his boss in Dubai to see if he can move back. The story took a dramatic turn and here I felt a real test of emotions for a woman who yearns for a sincere relationship. Ayesha rushed for the airport in rickshaw. Roaming everywhere on the airport, her eyes searched for Saad. “ I feel like I am standing on the edge of a pit and if I take one wrong step I’m going to fall in.

And then she eventually met Saad who spoke in an indifferent way, “ Clearly you don’t feel the same way, and that’s okay, we ‘ll still be friends. I just need to get you out of my head, which is kind of impossible when you are been in my head since we were fourteen.”

Ayesha wrapped her hands around Saad and as Ayesha said, “ And for the first time in years , I feel pure, unadulterated  happiness.”

Ms. Imtiaz has managed to pull together a novel that you want to read and share with people, especially its characters and events which focused reality and moved hearts deeply.

The writer is a Research Assistant at Teachers' Development Centre

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My Reflections on a Seminar

‘Who Fails When A Child Fails’

By Sadia Wali

While attending an inspiring Educational Seminar on Saturday, 1^st August 2015, at Karachi Arts Council organized by Educational Resource Development Centre, I remembered John Holt’s book How Children Fail. The book I have read three times and every time I read it moved my heart more deeply. The last time I read the book, I marked the quote I liked the most. John Holt writes   in his book, How Children Fail,

“For many years I have been asking myself why intelligent children act unintelligently at school. The simple answer is, "Because they're scared." I used to suspect that children's defeatism had something to do with their bad work in school, but I thought I could clear it away with hearty cries of "Onward! You can do it!" What I now see for the first time is the mechanism by which fear destroys intelligence, the way it affects a child's whole way of looking at, thinking about, and dealing with life.”

The Seminar ‘Who Fails When A Child Fails’ made teachers and parents realized their role and responsibilities in developing skills of their children. It is only possible by providing cordial environment at home and school which helps in character building and enhancing the learning and creative capabilities of young kids.

The seminar focused on the key roles of the teachers to recognize and understand the psychological and emotional problem of the children. Learning and failure need to be revisited and changed. Creative aspect of education should be highlighted. How children learn and explore, teachers never ponder at. It is essential to build a strong bond between teacher and student to develop natural talent and skills of children.

Skits performed by the students of 22nd Batch of Professional Teachers Certificate course was superbly performed. The short role plays was written by renowned writer Manzar Imam. The role plays focused on various themes of parenting and negligence of teachers which leads to a child’s academic failure. The guests and chief guests greatly admired the poster exhibition by participants which depicts their deep thinking, extensive research and creativeness.

Participants of the seminar Dr. Syed Irfan Hyder, Tahir Javed, Rashida Murtaza, Dr.Shahida Mohiuddin and Salman Asif Siddiqui highlighted various aspects which teachers do not consider important in boosting up the intellect and skills of young growing children.

Tahir Javed’s opening statement caught my attention. As he said, children are the loveliest creations of Allah. They are not born for failures, they have to play a pivotal role in the world. We need to nurture the capabilities and talents of young kids. Another captivating statement by Tahir sahib was about testing and grading.  Testing means measurement of things like measuring vegetables or other eatables. The intelligences of children cannot be measured at any age or at any level; teachers need to comprehend this critical element. As it is seen that the examination papers are not made according to a child’s level of understanding; this kind of testing does not helps to improve the skills of the children rather the fear of getting fail make them more anxious, pessimistic and insecure. So who faces the consequences?  And how the child cope up with the circumstances, we educators need to ponder at.

Rashida Murtaza spoke in an enthusiastic tone about retention and class repeating of the child. She emphasized over the schools to discourage Retention Policy rather introduce Remedial Support Program for children who needs assistance to uplifts their learning and skills.

Dr.Shahida Mohiuddin expressed her views with whole-heartedness, a teacher should aim at creating a learning environment in classroom; let children be engaged in learning and develop their creativity and curiosity. Just see their creativity, experimentation, how they think in depth and their power of questioning makes them unique and distinct, Let their self- confidence and self- esteem grow not wither. When children have fear of failure, they lose their sense of joy. Self- building concept and imaginative thinking becomes stagnant and they begin to drift towards dejection and misery. Sense of failure deeply affects the personality, the child continues to feel negative about himself. For example, ‘I can’t do anything in life’ or ‘I am a failure’. Sense of failure and guilt is the source of all abnormalities’ she emphasized.

We can best help children learn, not by deciding what we think they should learn and thinking of ingenious ways to teach it to them, but by making the world, as far as we can, accessible to them, paying serious attention to what they do, answering their questions -- if they have any -- and helping them explore the things they are most interested in.”

― John Holt

According to Dr. Syed Irfan Hyder, schools instead of focusing on external environment of teaching i.e. classroom management and the paradigm of testing, teachers need to boost up creativeness in children, to let them think and explore new ideas and create great things. Let the child grade himself and understand his competences.

Lastly, Salman Asif Siddiqui and Tahir Javed talked about consequences and some solutions. Salman Asif Siddiqui said that Holistic learning for the child is important. Nowadays, the phenomenon of teaching has been changed.  Instead of fostering knowledge and learning in young people, education is merely motivating young people towards accomplishing academic goals. Teachers need to understand their role; provide insult stress free learning environment at schools. An innovative atmosphere will help teachers to understand the child’s attitude and behavior, improve teacher- child relationship and builds up his character. To make a child confident and motivated, respect his self-esteem and instantly respond to the queries of children.

Tahir Javed said he never saw a teacher or principal being upset on a child’s failure. The school never take the blame of a child’s failure, it is the child and the family suffers economic and social consequences. In his opinion, if teachers follow the passion and commitment of not failing the child and helping the child to improve his skills. At least till secondary level teachers can opt for this decision and can implement in their schools for the better progress of the child.

Summing up the Session, Salman Asif Siddiqui said there is something seriously and fundamentally wrong with our contemporary education system. We feel that a radical change is possible if teachers and parents take initiatives and help those who are launching movements for the educational change in ummah. 

I will quote Qur’an here: “And those who strive in our (cause), we will certainly guide them to our Paths: For verily Allah is with those who do right”. (Al-Ankaboot: 69)  

        

 The article is written by Sadia Wali,She works as research Assistant at Teacher's Development Centre

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