MAKKAH: Since 2020, the Jawlah Foundation in Saudi Arabia has been developing games and toys to help kids develop their cognitive skills and foster a stronger bond with Arab culture. Saudi education expert Shahd Al-Athel, the company’s founder, told Arab News recently that she spotted “a clear gap in the content of children’s toys” and decided to start the business. The market for toys for kids “does not reflect our Islamic environment or represent the identity of our Arab children,” according to Al-Athel.
“For example, children were playing with Christmas trees and pine trees instead of toys like palm trees.” Al-Athel claims that her early years in the US influenced her beliefs about customs and pastimes as a child, and she felt cut off from her roots. She want to participate in traditions that represented her identity and ancestry, just as her American friends did.
Al-Athel first encountered the warmth of familial ties and the depth of Arab and Islamic culture when she relocated to Saudi Arabia when she was fifteen years old. By participating in events with other students, Al-Athel established a sense of belonging in the Kingdom and learnt a lot about who she was in secondary school. Al-Athel chose to focus on education while attending university. After graduating from the University of Hartford in the United States with a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education, she went on to New York University to earn a master’s degree in educational technology and digital design.
Al-Athel claimed to have contributed to the creation of English-language programming for a multicultural audience while working on the children’s television program “Sesame Street” in New York. She left the company, nonetheless, since she felt that the work did not fit with her goal of producing educational materials for Arab children.
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