What do kids really need for Christmas?

And I determined to write a Christmas column, or two, on toys we can make from our waste here in Zimbabwe. But then it became apparent to me that we can give quite a bit more than just toys to our kids this Christmas. What it is that children in Zimbabwe need? Zimbabwean kids have paid dearly for the political turmoil our country is in. They have said goodbye to too many family members, have known hunger and disease and too much uncertainty regarding their homes, their schooling and their future.

It is essential for children who have struggled like this to be taught the meaning of a warm, loving and effective family life and society. There is no better medium than play to teach children just that. In the process we will give them a better general knowledge, more life skills and better language proficiency. More importantly we will teach them to hope for a better future.

My friend suggested we create a house an ideal, dream house – from recycled materials. This would be a place with clean running water, a loo, a bed for each one, a place to cook and maybe a desk to work at. Used maize meal bags and old fabric are ideal for sewing together a house plan. Well make a map on the floor of a little ones dream home.

Perhaps it is one big wall-to-wall carpeted home, perhaps it has passages and rooms hand-sewn together to make a two-dimensional plan. The purpose is not to imagine wealth but to imagine a space that his healthy and happy to live in. In the making of the toy well discuss each part of the house, what its purpose is and why we need it. Older children will be part of the design and enjoy the making of the toy as much as playing with it.

We can use an empty cooking oil bottle as a table and smaller soda bottles to function as chairs. The bottle tops will be our plates. Perhaps we will make a dressing table with real drawers from matchboxes that slide out and a vertical foil-covered mirror. And after we have created the ideal home, we will construct the ideal town. This would be a place with shops and offices, a working post office, police station, community hall and places of worship. We will sew large sacks together and sew roads onto it.

Then our waste will become the buildings and parks, cars and people. We will create a healthy town for our children and in our play we can talk about where the rubbish dump is, the school, church and hospital; what happens at every place and why do we need each to fulfil its function. And our play will offer much room for conversation in which we can help children develop perceptual concepts, and verbalise hopes and dreams.

But more importantly, for Christmas we will be furnishing an ideal environment and thus giving them an invitation to imagine a better future.

If our children cannot even conceptualise a better tomorrow, they will only perpetuate the cycle of poverty of which they are victims. They wont even have the ability to escape it when life offers them opportunities.