By Chris Onuoha

The 2022 annual children’s programme called “Treasure Hunt Competition” organised by CASVI Foundation was concluded recently with valuable gift prizes given to lucky winners. The one-month long event in its 5th edition is a game show meant for children in junior and senior secondary schools with intent to improve their learning capacity and also upscale their intuitive focusing and independence in solving problems.

The fun filled games that include ‘throwing the ring, water bottle, pipe ball, entering the tyre, building castle among others,’ saw the enthusiastic children participate vigorously to win prizes while also exercising this talent in creative thinking.  

Akeem Ariori, a social worker, is the founder of CASVI foundation, organisers of the show. Ariori who has consistently sponsored this programme to help children’s learning skills believes that children, as leaders of tomorrow deserves to function well intelligently at the early stage, to fit into future responsibilities in life. While speaking to Vanguard Correspondent during the show, he provided insights of what the programme is all about.

“Today we featured ‘Treasure hunt’. And the idea is to encourage the children to understand what treasure is. When we asked them from the beginning to mention what they know about the word, ’treasure,’ some of them could only say, silver and gold. But we made them understand that possessing treasure is beyond acquiring physical stones,” says Ariori.

Continuing, he mentioned, “In this competition, about 67 students drawn from junior secondary schools (JSS) class within Lagos and Ogun State participated. The focus is on wanting them to pay attention to details, avoid distractions and listen to instructions given to them.

In the process of the entire competition, there were elimination stages before the final stage that involved searching for about six different valuable items as treasure search.  Beyond that, each and every participant will go home with a prize gift. The idea is to teach the children the attitude of effective focus, listen to instructions, guidelines and principles and be more attentive at all times in everything they do in life.”

“The games are segmented for junior and senior secondary students. The programme usually runs from 1st to the 24th of December every year. In this particular one, there were activities stipulated for each day that include treasure hunts, football matches and others.  It is very important because paying attention to details is the key. You must be conscious, for the fact that it is something beyond your reach and you must work hard to get it. At the end of the rigorous exercise, you must value what you must have sought and found. It is nothing you just throw away without value.

Speaking about the inspiration behind the project, Ariori has this to say. “This is called, festival of inspiration. One of the reasons is that parents seem to focus more on the academics of their children without thinking that there are other areas that need to be developed.

They need to empty their brain, and discover other skills they have. In the course of gathering children for these programmes, we noticed that some children are so reserved and would not participate. But when we bring out colourful games, their interest rekindles.  That is why we use more gaming tools to attract their attention,” he said.

He mentioned that while varieties of games are introduced, more children show interest to participate, thereby, attracting and increasing the number of children participants within the community in the competition.

“We also visit schools to introduce some of the games to them. Our approach is different from the normal classroom engagement. We do about 90 percent of our programmes in the open space and these attract the attention of the children more,” said Ariori.

 He however, lamented that support has not been encouraging as the projects has been sponsored by self and tokens from family members and well wishers, while encouraging private, public organisations including government to support the programme.

“We started as a family project without initial partnership or support from any organisation or individual, because it is something borne out of passion for children and their development. As time goes on, the interest grows within the community including parents of the participating children, because the impact becomes obvious as the children exhibit some qualities of improvements in their academics and lifestyle too.

“However, friends, associates and clients whom I have shared some of these experiences with in the past became helpful, as they showed interest with support. Otherwise, it has been an individual effort from the onset without support from anybody.”

“The programme ‘treasure hunt’ has been ongoing for over 5 years. Part of the outcome is that the children tell others about their experience. This helps to propagate the idea and vision among schools. That is how the number of participants grew. For instance, some schools that have benefited from these activities have shown interest to include our programmes in their curriculum. That is commendable which other schools are trying to emulate, because they have seen the impact on the students.

“We use volunteer staff for our projects, because my company is a non-for-profit organisation. The staff are drawn from members and they are not paid. Although there are ways they benefit from the foundation through training, during appreciation dinner and other educational engagements to improve their career in life.

“For the children participants, we reward them with gifts such as developmental books, learning materials, rechargeable lamps and things that would aid their academics. We don’t give physical cash because we don’t want to see the initiative as a money making venture. What we do sometimes is to engage the students in quiz competitions whereby the winners are rewarded by paying for their jamb forms as an incentive to encourage them.”

“We also run a counseling programme called ‘the big issue’ where some experts interact with the children, especially the girls. We noticed in our last programme of the segment that the children were not really opening up or expressing their worries.

But after the programme, observations revealed that the children were secretly telling their friends about dating and having boyfriends. Some of these things are never discussed with their parents and us too. But when an experienced counselor interacts with them, they will be free to discuss issues that bother them,” Ariori said.

Some of the participants who shared their experience in the game have this to say; “I have learnt a lot here today about focusing and concentration. The games are very interesting also because while participating, I learned how to apply both to achieve results,” says Adeniyi Damilayo, a JSS1 student.

For Mailab, a JSS2 student, he said, today’s exercise has taught him to be very vigilant and careful because, if one rushes for something, it would be difficult to achieve it, but when things are taken at ease, achieving a goal becomes easier.

Eno Success, a JSS3 student said, “I have learnt about trying to succeed without giving up. The exercise has taught me to keep trying always even when I am not getting it right, that continuous trying when in difficulty will always get good results. These, I will also apply in my studies in school,”

Peter Olusegun, is a teacher and one of the game coordinating volunteers, he also said, “Actually, it is more than fun. To me as a teacher, I would say it helps them to face life challenges. I have also learnt a lot here too, because whatever is being done here, I would adapt it to teach in my class. It is a life impacting exercise.

For me, I would advise the children not to see these as fun alone but should see it as a way of enlightening and facing life challenges.  There are hurdles to cross before getting into the treasure. These are life changing experiences they should inculcate into their life to face the future.”

For Hakeem Ariori, it is a continuous exercise to help children become independent in the way they do things both in school and at home. To him, the passion to see children build up good character is his propelling factor, and the goal is to have a better and positively progressive future generation.