When we first started chatting with 'Atikah about stocking her creations with us at Little Lalang, we were excited as we loved how minimalistic and simple to understand her posters were. It isn't easy to find such posters in Malay here and we love that these are now available to the Malay speaking community.
We asked 'Atikah a few questions so that she can share more about herself and her creations. Here is the interview:
1.Can you tell us a bit about yourself and why you started The Striving Mom SG?
I’m ‘Atikah. I’m an ex preschool educator turned stay at home mom. I have a daughter who’s turning 3 years old in July. I do a lot of volunteer work cause giving back to the community is something important to me. Some communities that I help with are the cloth diapering community with CDSG and Nappy Nook, I do help a little bit with 3E Community Play Library and Go Diaper Free Singapore too and I also help with rescues for sick and injured cats at Love Kuching Project.
I started The Striving Mom SG because I was having a hard time finding suitable Malay resources for my child and found that this is an area that is lacking for the Malay community. It’s worrying enough that in the preschool scene, not all childcare centres offer Malay for our Malay children and it was difficult to find good quality Malay books too. Thus, when I created these resources, I really wanted it to benefit our community in a fuss free, minimalistic and cost effective way.
2. Why is it so important to you that children have localised educational resources?
It’s important for children to see themselves represented. I grew up feeling quite lost cause I did not have that sense of belonging. I feel like if children can see themselves in these resources it would give them a sense of confidence, a sense of belonging and they can understand our culture and practices better.
Children remember better if they can relate to what they’re seeing and reading. So, representation, representation, representation!
3. How do you think your experience as a preschool teacher has influenced the posters you create?
As a preschool teacher previously, I understand that environment is the 3rd teacher and it’s really plays a big part in children’s learning. Depending on what approach you follow, a print rich environment can help greatly with language skills. Having a minimalistic, simple design with realistic images helps children to focus, relate to the real thing in their everyday life and also it’s easy on the eyes and doesn’t clutter up the room that these posters may be placed in.
We hope that this interview has helped you understand 'Atikah's creations more. Please feel free to reach out to us or her should you have any questions at all!
You can find 'Aitkah on Instagram at @thestrivingmomsg.