A THOUGHT-provoking three-day symposium on rediscovering childhood was held in town last week. The very mention of childhood makes me nostalgic, and quite understandably. But yet one asks in some kind of naïve wonder: which children was the symposium talking about? There are indeed, all kinds of children in this society; rural and urban wouldn’t be adequate classification. Rich and poor? Bright and dull? Quiet and the talkative? And so on. What kind of children, really?

During the days of the conference there was published a very eloquent photograph in this daily, with the focus being on the summer. The caption read: “Beat the heat” and it showed half a dozen children (obviously of the poorer sections of society) bathing (even diving into) in the Boating Basin. That landmark in upper class Clifton has neither boats nor clean water. But stay with the childhood theme.

One is certain that the symposium was not talking of street children or child labour, or those who swim in sewerage water or even in the Lyari River when it pours in town. The symposium, was talking about children who go to schools. Even then it was very welcome. It is high time somebody thought about the kind of childhood that our society, generally speaking, is giving to the children in schools. Or before they go to schools. By implication, what kind of family life are we giving to children? What kind of mothers, and fathers, and environment are we providing to them? There are so many questions. It is a painful thought that children are often being denied or deprived of the emotional bank and the balance that they need at that age. Childhood may sound short term or interim, but trust me, it is a long run, for its impact, its influence and its consequences stretches into middle age, into old age. The impressions of childhood, and during childhood, colour the rest of life.

This symposium was organized by the Sindh Education Foundation, the Aga Khan Foundation, the USAID, and the Catco Kids. Strangely while the speeches have been reported, as a reader I was rather disappointed to notice that the human side of the proceedings was almost missing. However, one hopes that now that this theme has been underlined, it will be taken up more often, with a view towards attempting to find ways and means to ensure “a happy and healthier world for children”, which is what speakers said at the very outset on the first day. These speakers opined, and with good reason, that children today were “living in a state of helplessness amid war, hunger, poverty, and cultural invasions”.

Cultural invasions? Perhaps to take on this challenge the moot recommended that that there should be a separate channel especially for children’s education and entertainment, and that it should be partially managed by children themselves under the umbrella of “children’s media and culture”. Then there should be no commercials, regardless of whether the channel is in the public or private sector. The question: where will the funding come from. If it is from international donors, surely they will have their own agenda, be it known publicly or not. And there were other suggestions, other observations.

The Managing Director of the Sindh Education Foundation Anita Ghulam Ali commenting on the symposium theme told me that society has reached such an unfortunate stage that it appears that the children have no childhood anymore. The lives of children are so strictly structured in a larger child unfriendly environment, that eventually as he or she grows up there are no happy memories. She said that “children are sent to school so early, sometimes at the age of a year and a half it seems, that the child is robbed of the freedom and the creativity that is so vital at that stage. Not to mention the emotional needs that being at home can meet.” She was very emphatic as she stressed the need to have a system or an environment which would encourage children to demonstrate their creativity, their imagination.

In another context Anita Ghulam Ali referred to the television that children watch endlessly (or aimlessly, I wonder). She said that families, and parents enable children to sit before TV sets, watching cable TV or video films, and feel that they have done their duty. In fact when this has happened, I have heard many educationists feel that the child has been deprived of family bonding, which is essential and indispensable. I am reminded here of an educated couple who have eliminated the TV from their homes. The argument being that when necessary their two children can watch video films instead. It is an attempt to curb TV viewing, in terms of time. Which further reminds me that many homes, (joint families and single unit homes) eliminated the TV set option from their domestic scene.

At the inauguration of the symposium, the Sindh Education minister was quoted as saying that “for children in Pakistan, from birth to the age they become youth, there were enormous problems, with all diversities, but the government and the society had been failing to help them cope with those challenges.” One session, in the three days was devoted to the role of families in “rediscovering childhood.” One feels that the single most powerful influence and emotional cushion that children need in the tense, hectic lives around them is that of the family. From the time they go to school with their scandalously heavy school bags, hanging on them, through a transport system often strenuous and disgusting, through classroom experiences that are evidently mechanical, and so on, to the end of the day, children appear like robots in the evening. Don’t ask me how disappointing it is to see children in a state of all round collapse, at the end of the day, as they demonstrate a complete inability to harmonise with their equally disinterested, exhausted family members. It is a worrying picture that emerges of this society.

The beauty of childhood. The innocence and the freedom to be naughty (not indisciplined please) and the fact of happy families sharing a daily routine, (read Life). That’s what childhood is about, and which is missing in this society.

Finally, let me end today with a note of some cheer. Let me focus on the Children’s Health conference organized by the Hamdard Public School and the Hamdard Foundation Pakistan on the occasion of World Health Day on Thursday evening at the Beach Luxury Hotel. The children stole the show, and they did so well that the conference President Dr Khalf Bile Mohamud, WHO representative, applauded the children and the organizers, saying that this was the only function of its kind and was being held for years now. That brought in the obvious mention of Hakim Mohammad Said, whose emphasis on and love of children is both well-known, deeply missed.