We do fun activities targeted at making learning more memorable through arts and crafts, history, science, etc - The Craft Club

By Kemi Mobuse - Friday, June 17, 2016

Learning is active, engaging, and social. Students need to be engaged and motivated in their learning before they can apply higher-order creative thinking skills. They are most engaged when they themselves are part of constructing meaning, not when teachers do it for them. By encouraging students to meet challenges creatively, collaborate, and apply critical-thinking skills to real-world, unpredictable situations inside and outside of school, we prepare them for future college, career, and citizenship success.

This is what brought into being the Craft Club; where Children are actively engaged by performing activities that makes learning more fun, spontaneous and stimulating all at once.

KMB met with the two partners who are founders of the Club, and below are excerpts from the interview;


KMB: Can we meet you? What do you do?
 
The Craft Club: My name is Zaiyanatu A. Umar.  Mother of 3 Children.  Microbiologist and Co founder The Crafts Club. My partner is Fatimah nana Mohammed.

The Crafts club is an exclusive club for kids aged 3 - 12yrs.  Our slogan is where learning becomes a hobby.  We do fun activities targeted at making learning more memorable through arts and crafts, history, science, literature, games etc
 


KMB: What inspired you starting the craft club?
 
The Craft Club: Our love for DIY and crafting projects as well as our love for spending time with our kids. We believe there’s nothing comparable to mummy and me time. This by extension led us to our flare to embrace more kids. We believe there's so much more to be learnt outside the classroom walls. And more and more kids today are simply bored with basic learning thus our inspiration to create loads and loads of fun while learning
Oh yes! And a means of getting kids away from the TV and video games which is unfortunately a reality for kids nowadays.
 
KMB: What is the name of your brand and how old is it?
 
The Craft Club: The Crafts Club was a year old last December.
 
KMB: How has the market reception been?


The Craft Club: I think we tapped into a major market - kids. Parents are willing to invest especially when they've had a feel of the significance.
So the market reception has been quite good.  We've grown within a short while by God's grace

KMB: What major challenges have you had to deal with since inception,
How did you sort them out, more importantly, what did you gain from them?

The Craft Club: I think we faced a few;
1. Raising capital: Initially, we had so many ideas and things we wanted to do when we first launched but due to lack of finances we've learnt to accept building our brand gradually.
 
2. Assembling a business team which we are still struggling with: Before any event, we train our volunteers and that's what we’ve been doing all along. It took us awhile for us to realize that, that was not working for us. We have now almost completed the process of creating our own full fledged team who share the same passion and share the same work ethics as us
 
3. Keeping up with trends and changes. In other words, staying relevant: We want parents to continue to entrust us with teaching their kids outside the classroom and for the kids to have fun while they are with us. In order for that to happen we plan on pushing ourselves to do better and look for opportunities around us. We don't like ordinary. We don't want to be ordinary. We want to be unique...we want to have fun, and of course we want the kids to have much more fun.
 


4. Sourcing for materials locally. This usually affects our time lines and costs
I think what we are trying to say is; we pride ourselves in the quality of our supplies and the forex issue hasn't helped matter of late.  Sourcing for materials in house at the quality we have been used to is a bit of a challenge.
 
Our focus is on making efforts not to compromise the quality of our work and vision and that's why we are now okay with growing slowly. Even though I must point out, we've achieved so much so far. It's been a year and a couple of months yet we've had numerous accomplishments.

KMB: And what message will you like to pass across to parents via your brand?
 
The Craft Club: We want parents to understand that, the learning process requires as much their involvement as that of the teachers.  We believe in the saying; it takes a village to raise a child. We want to be a part of their little one's village. And we intend to do it THE SUPER FUN WAY💃🏽😁
 
KMB: Can you give us an example of one activity/event that your brand recently organized and its benefit for the kids?

The Craft Club: Our theme last year summer 2015 was health and safety.
So, we invited the fire service to come discuss some fire safety tips with the kids.
After the discussion, there was a demonstration. To educate the kids on how to behave should there be a fire outbreak around them anytime.

We also run our YouTube channel to help kids build on their self esteem, self confidence and leadership skills through our "Our way, your way" series.  Here, our club members get a chance to tutor a role model\entrepreneur on how to perform a certain task or activity the Crafts Club Way and they in turn, get the entrepreneurs way of doing things taught to them.



KMB: What do you hope to have achieved with the Craft Club in say 5 years?

The Craft Club: In 5 years we hope God willing to get;
👉🏾To Launch our product line to include homemade and completely food based play dough, and finger paint. Amongst other things
👉🏾Our lifestyle blog, up and running
👉🏾Our services extended to at least 2 - 3 other states
👉🏾The Charity branch of our organization
👉🏾The Gift and party favor division fully running
👉🏾 The Launch of our Crafts and Games manual
👉🏾A well established club house with all necessary infrastructure for club members
👉🏾our crafts supply shop up and running
👉🏾The Launch of our Crafts Club Seniors division focusing on skill requisition for older kids
👉🏾Our Parenting classes.

KMB: Any message for upcoming entrepreneurs?
 
The Craft Club: Baby steps.  Once you’ve identified your passion and a set plan to go about it, the biggest step is taking the first step towards achieving it.  Nothing is too little to begin with. Start small, grow gradually. Procrastination is your greatest enemy.  Just make sure you aren't stagnant, you need to grow by the day.
 
Set doable yardsticks and thrust yourself forward.  Always learn from your mistakes.  With an identified passion as a job, the sky is your limit
 
KMB: Lastly, how can you be contacted?
 
The Craft Club:  Email: thecraftsclub@gmail.com

More pictures below:
































 



  • Share:

You Might Also Like

1 comments