A session to promote the art of story-telling among children was organised at The Second Floor (T2F) on Sunday.
Children were reminded, in a subtle way, about the importance of Urdu, creativity, story-crafting, sharing and friendship. In the first part of the kahani session, educationist Mrs Perveen Qasim Ali of the Karachi Public School along with one of her students read out stories to the young audience. Children were also informed about the concepts of ‘kutti’ (symbolic gesture about parting of friends), book reading and etiquettes.
In the latter half of the interactive session, Sania Saeed along with kids attending the activity crafted a story. Input from children was particularly encouraged and participants were rewarded with toffees and bookmarks. Saeed’s focus was to introduce children to things that people have now retired from including picnics and healthy diet. As a symbol, she and her much younger friends sang Sohail Rana’s “Mubarak ho tumhein, khushi ka yeh samaa” as a gesture to celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ and Quaid-e-Azam.
Kahani Time, as the name suggests, revolved around story-telling, however, the purpose of the event was to provide children and their parents with a space where they can spend their Sunday noon interacting with kids of their age and pick new things alongside.
Furthermore, the participants of the session were told about Toffeetv.com, a project of Kahani Time’s moderator Rabia Garib and Talea Zafar, where Urdu stories and songs for children are available online. The website also aims to promote Urdu language in an era where obsession for English is taking over the country.