At a time when chil­dren are grap­pling with mount­ing men­tal health chal­lenges, such as anx­i­ety, stress, and bul­ly­ing, the Rapid Fire Kidz Foun­da­tion has opened a $100,000 play­park at the Debe Hin­du School to counter these stress­es.

De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the open­ing of the play park on Sun­day, Con­sul­tant in In­ter­nal Med­i­cine, En­docrinol­o­gy and Di­a­betes, Dr Joel Teelucks­ingh re­flect­ed on the im­por­tance of out­door play for chil­dren.

“We live in an era where chil­dren are un­der un­prece­dent­ed lev­els of stress,” he said. “The pres­sure of aca­d­e­mics, the fast pace of tech­nol­o­gy, and so­cial chal­lenges all weigh heav­i­ly on their young shoul­ders. Many peo­ple may not re­alise how deeply this af­fects their men­tal health,” he said.

He thanked the foun­da­tion and its main spon­sor RIK Ser­vices Ltd (Roland I Khan) for pro­vid­ing the park for over 400 chil­dren.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, bul­ly­ing is a harsh re­al­i­ty that many chil­dren face, with last­ing ef­fects. En­vi­ron­ments like this play­park re­duce con­flict and en­cour­age em­pa­thy. Here, chil­dren learn to share, in­clude oth­ers, and de­vel­op life­long friend­ships in a safe, su­per­vised space. It’s an en­vi­ron­ment where they are not just hav­ing fun but learn­ing kind­ness, un­der­stand­ing, and re­spect for each oth­er,” he said.

Teelucks­ingh fur­ther em­pha­sized the link be­tween phys­i­cal play and men­tal health.

“Stud­ies con­sis­tent­ly show that out­door ac­tiv­i­ties can sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce anx­i­ety and stress. Some­thing as sim­ple as run­ning, play­ing, or cy­cling re­leas­es en­dor­phins, which are nat­ur­al stress re­duc­ers and pro­mote hap­pi­ness,” he said.

Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the foun­da­tion Kevin Rati­ram, said the play­park fea­tures a mix of tra­di­tion­al and mod­ern play equip­ment de­signed to en­cour­age a wide range of ac­tiv­i­ties.

He praised the gen­eros­i­ty of RIK Ser­vices.

Rati­ram re­flect­ed on the trou­bling state of the world, un­der­scor­ing the need for more spaces that pro­mote peace and pos­i­tiv­i­ty.

“When you look around the world to­day, it is more rest­less than it has ever been. We see tens of thou­sands of in­no­cent chil­dren suf­fer­ing in con­flict zones like Gaza and Ukraine, while right here in Trinidad, we re­cent­ly wit­nessed the trag­ic mur­der of a one-year-old child,” he said.

Rati­ram added: “The world to­day is rid­dled with vi­o­lence, but what we need are sol­diers of peace—or­di­nary peo­ple like you and me who will stand up against do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, cor­rup­tion, bul­ly­ing, and all forms of in­jus­tice.”

Rati­ram said apart from swings, see-saws and slides, the park al­so had a hop­scotch box, a tyre fea­ture, and 20 hu­la hoops.