Mary Cuffy

Have you ever tak­en a trip to an­oth­er coun­try and learned all about its his­to­ry, on­ly to re­alise you don’t know the sto­ries be­hind your own back­yard?

Two moms and ed­u­ca­tors from Rio Claro, Beena Bha­ga­loo-Ram­nar­ine and Shauntel Dou­glas, no­ticed the ex­act same thing. They re­alised that while many chil­dren can tell you about fa­mous land­marks abroad, they don’t know much about the rich cul­ture, his­to­ry, and di­ver­si­ty of their own is­land home.

To fix this, they de­cid­ed to blend some­thing chil­dren al­ready learn at a ten­der age, the al­pha­bet, with the amaz­ing things that make Trinidad and To­ba­go spe­cial. The re­sult is the “Ah Tri­ni Al­pha­bet Cul­tur­al Colour­ing Book,” cre­at­ed by their brand, Mum­my & Me Work­shop.

But how ex­act­ly does this book work for kids? It’s de­signed to grow with your child, mak­ing learn­ing fun and in­ter­ac­tive at every age. For the lit­tle ones (ages 2 and up), it’s a fun way to learn the ABCs, and colour­ing the pic­tures helps build fine mo­tor skills, which are su­per im­por­tant for lit­tle hands learn­ing to write. Mean­while, for chil­dren (ages 8 and up), the book be­comes a trea­sure trove of cool facts; they can read the brief fun facts next to each let­ter and gain re­al knowl­edge about their coun­try!

Test Your Tri­ni Knowl­edge: You might vis­it these places and eat these foods all the time, but do you know the his­to­ry be­hind them? Here are some of the cool se­crets chil­dren are dis­cov­er­ing in­side the book:

• D is for Dou­bles: We all love en­joy­ing dou­bles, but did you know this de­li­cious snack was cre­at­ed in Princes Town in 1936?

• Z is for Zoo: You may have vis­it­ed the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo, but did you know it is the on­ly zoo in the Caribbean that cares for li­ons and gi­raffes?

• S is for Steel­pan: Every­one knows the steel­pan is our na­tion­al in­stru­ment, but have you ever heard of the Xy­lopan?

• H is for Hanu­man Mur­ti: Did you know that right here in Trinidad, we have the sec­ond largest Hanu­man Mur­ti in the world? (One Hin­du par­ent was sur­prised to learn this from the book!)

From Rio Claro to the Rest of T&T: Beena and Shauntel cre­at­ed the book based on their own child­hood mem­o­ries. Grow­ing up in Rio Claro, they were sur­round­ed by ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly, tra­di­tions, and folk­lore. They re­mem­ber im­promp­tu trips to Ma­yaro Beach with pelau in hand and dri­ving through the his­toric Knol­ly’s Tun­nel in Tabaquite. Be­cause they came from dif­fer­ent re­li­gious back­grounds, they al­so cel­e­brat­ed the beau­ty of Di­vali, East­er, and Christ­mas to­geth­er. Lit­tle by lit­tle, their el­ders in­stilled lo­cal his­to­ry in them, and they want to­day’s chil­dren to ex­pe­ri­ence that same joy.

Spark­ing Cu­rios­i­ty: Since the book launched just over a month ago, the re­sponse has been amaz­ing. The writ­ers said pri­ma­ry school in­fant teach­ers are al­ready us­ing it to teach So­cial Stud­ies for In­de­pen­dence and Re­pub­lic Day! Even bet­ter, chil­dren are fin­ish­ing the book and ask­ing their par­ents to take them to vis­it the mud vol­ca­noes and the Tem­ple in the Sea.

As Beena and Shauntel say: “Through ed­u­ca­tion, we plant the seeds of cu­rios­i­ty that grow in­to the trees of knowl­edge.”

They hope the fun facts in the book will in­spire you to take a deep­er dive in­to our rich his­to­ry. Af­ter all, the on­ly way to tru­ly un­der­stand who you are is to know where you came from!

Mary Cuffy is an ed­u­ca­tor and lo­cal chil­dren’s au­thor of the La­dy­bug se­ries. Cuffy be­lieves the best in­vest­ment we can make in chil­dren is in the ear­ly years.

Email mary.cuffy@ya­hoo.com . IG:marycuffy . FB: mary cuffy/Lo­la and the Danc­ing La­dy­bug