Youths connect with kids

Youths connect with kids

The youths of today have vastly different interests and needs compared to kids, the former is often preoccupied with the challenges of scholastic achievements and romantic ties perhaps while the latter are more engrossed in fun and games.

Still it does make for an interesting experiment to bring these two vastly different age groups together and help each understand the other while doing their bit for charity. It was precisely for this reason that Jumble Station partnered with the youth group of the Subang Jaya Gospel Church recently to throw a party for the kids of the underprivileged sector in Angsana USJ1.

Some 20 of the youths came armed with loads of food to feed the hungry mites but before that, the more hyperactive teens, took on the challenge of organizing icebreaker games for the 65 or so kids of all races. Kicking off with a find your slipper game where all the kids were asked to put their left shoe or slipper in a pile and at the word “Go” dash forward to find their missing footwear – the resulting chaos – as kids scrambled desperately to find their footwear – generated loud laughters and giggles.

This was followed soon after by the game of two kids holding their hands out as a tree while another pretended to be a squirrel below – at the signal “fire”, the trees had to abandon their squirrel and find another while shouts of “hunter” forced the squirrels to run and seek new hiding places and the final ‘earthquake’ call saw everyone running helter skelter!

The final game was the “London Bridge is Falling Down” where the teens formed the bridge and caught the kids at the end but the funniest part was when the kids, tiny as they were – mostly 5-10 years old – became the bridge itself and their small stature forced the teens to bend double as they tried going underneath the bridge itself – to immense laughter and fun!

The afternoon finished off with a hefty meal of tasty KFC, nuggets, chocolate cake and ice cream for each kid and mums present and the handing over of a goodie bag for each child just before departure from the community hall where the event took place. All in all, it was a great and uplifting experience for the teens to learn interaction with the younger ones while the kids rediscovered how lovely it was to have big brothers and sisters to play with.

Hopefully, there will be more of such collaborative events to benefit the poor families and single parents for whom, parties such as these are rare indeed!