Anuja Gupta, Danvneva Phira and Nithya David are three mothers who recently found themselves on a similar mission — to try and fill the void in their toddlers' lives. They were of the opinion that the formative years of today's children are often wasted because of society's pressure to compete and stand out. So earlier this year, they came together and founded Hullabaloo, a platform exclusively for children under the age of five, where the only focus is to let toddlers have fun and explore the world, their abilities and interests on their own. Now, with the pandemic shutting schools and daycare centres, they've taken their sessions entirely online.
"An enriched life is a life pursuing one's purpose. And if you find your purpose at a very young age, chances are you will enjoy the process of honing it constantly. At Hullaballoo, we believe that this seeding of possibilities has to be sown during a child's formative years itself. The more children are exposed to the myriad ways of expressing themselves, the more they will be inspired to make some of it their dreams and ambitions," explains Anuja.
The primary idea was to create meaningful experiences in outdoor community spaces because that's where these kids belong at these ages. "We had events in community spaces, parks and bakeries. Some of the events were gardening, cooking, storytelling and basic musical sessions, activities that normally, as parents, we don't allow kids to get involved in because they're messy. But this is the age when kids are very receptive, they're open to learning and they want to do things on their own. It's adults that don't let them try," adds Nithya.
While these outdoor activities had a great impact on the toddlers, the pandemic forced the team to go digital. Danvneva says, "We started curating our digital experiences. Digital gave us the opportunity to connect to more people, not only in India, but across the world, in terms of collaboration and audience. That was very encouraging. We've started our live sessions this week. What we're saying is that if your kid is not interested in watching anything digital, that's a good problem to have. So we're not saying that you have to get them on our platform. But, if you are allowing your child to go digital, then why not try something that is interactive, something that can build a lot of curiosity in them, that gives them an opportunity to absorb something useful. This is pretty much the premise of it. We are curating a lot more in the coming weeks as well."
The experience has been a really quick lerning curve for them. Anuja adds, "We're getting artists and professionals to engage the kids. We are now in the fourth week and we have planned a whole set of new activies for children. Starting from July 4, we have 18 activities planned for the children. We carefully curate these experiences for your children that they can absorb on their own, or can enjoy with your participation. Each live session is meant to be highly interactive and we are capping it for 8 kids only. We have made the pricing very reasonable so that everyone can participate. The session starts from Rs 350 for one session and Rs 2,200 for all nine sessions. We have made sure that we tie up with professionals who are experts in their field as we believe that every child needs professional assistance to mould them better.
