Fostering creativity in the minds of children at a very young age is important. It gives them the power to think by themselves and enhance their brain development. Giving consideration into this aspect, the 23rd episode of the ‘Amazing people’ series by News Karnataka was conducted on the topic ‘Children’s Intellectual Development’.

The programme, ‘Amazing People’ has already completed 22 episodes and is growing in popularity. This episode was broadcast live on its YouTube Channel on July 2 and Neville Kevin Rodrigues, Creativity Mentor, Focalsi, Savilla George, Director, Starkids for Children Development and Sandhya Swaminathan, Creativity Mentor were the Guests, CA Valerian Dalmaida & Mentor, Spearhead Media Group Rajesh Sequeira were Programme Co-Hosts.

For the past 30 years, Neville has been teaching creativity to children and teens, as well as working as a personality development expert for over 19 years. He is also the founder and CEO of a drone firm and an adventure sport enthusiast. Savilla had been working as a finance manager for upto 13 years during which she stumbled upon this business of keeping children skilled for the coming era. She has worked in marketing field under hospitality industry to finance field under investment banking industry. Sandhya started sketching portraits as a hobby after quitting her job. Soon her hobby become her passion and she has conducted over 50-60 art workshops across India. She has judged various art festivals and events at colleges in India and has also had the honour of becoming a ted speaker.

Neville Kevin Rodrigues

‘Empowering a child is the very key because it gives them the capacity to make independent decisions’

Education makes a child always dependent on the teachers and notes. When you empower a child to be independent, it means that you give them the necessary tool and skills to achieve that and this is what creativity mentoring is all about.

In this process, it is equally important to tell a child what he or she is not capable of so that a realistic approach can be maintained. We have to help them understand the extent to which their dreams can be made possible with consideration to factors like availability of resources, their background, ecosystem and so on. This knowledge will give them the confidence to move forward. During my time we had to go far and beyond to acquire the tools and resources required but now we have everything in the tip of our fingers.

‘Every child is born a genius’

This sounds like a very big statement but it is very true. Your outcome or what you do with your creativity depends upon a lot of factors like where you come from, what tools you have and so on. There is a quote which says that if you want to be a winner, you have to live in a place where there are lot of winners. This is a very powerful and profound statement and there is a lot of debate going on over this and the question is whether you move away from the place that you are or create a place yourself where you are. The important aspects are that the child should know what her talents are and then work on it. Nowadays we see that the parents are challenged in terms of time and mind space and through our course we try to give the parents awareness about themselves primarily so that they in turn can be of assistance to their children.

‘Creativity is not just about art and craft’

Art and craft are just a part of creativity. Our creativity faculty is the entire process and this is what differentiates us from an animal. I have been in the space of training for 19 to 20 years now whereas the creativity mentoring things has been on the work for the past five to six years. Ironically because of Covid, people are looking into courses online and this creativity mentoring course was always meant to be online.

Thanks to platforms like NK, we get a chance to showcase ourselves and give the parents an opportunity to see what we have to offer. Creativity mentoring is not a course that competes with other courses, but rather it’s actually a start to all. It empowers a child to figure out things and ask the right questions.

My future plans are to stabilise the creativity mentoring course in a year or two and establish this method and show the outcome to the Edutech investors. The idea is to have at least 100 franchises in India within a span of 5 years. I have been working with News Karnataka to reach out to various demographics and I have gotten a lot of positive response thanks to them.

Savilla George

‘This is not magic but a function of absolute discipline and hard work’

The momentum for our company was gained when the first set of our kids reached the level five of our course and showcased their talents. Teachers and parents started calling us and asking what magic we had done because our students would complete the math problems very quickly. I told them that this is not magic but what they are doing is a function of absolute discipline and hard work. The arithmetic they are doing is only a means to an end.

The course is more about developing a child’s brain and we use the abacus tool. What the child is actually doing is that they are converting these numbers with formula which is processed in the left brain into a picture image of beads in the right brain. This acts like a mental gym and as they get more experienced, they do larger numbers and this in turn improves their brain capacity.

The proof of the pudding came from the schools where other students expressed their desire to join and how our students were able to express their talent. Word of mouth had a cascading effect and we started gaining a lot of attention.

I would say that its discipline and hard work from teachers and parents to bring about a result and its not a learning programme but rather a skill programme like swimming or playing the piano so it requires constant practice. Hence those kids who practice well really have the benefit.

‘I admire people who can deal with children’

I was never a teacher and when it comes to children, it’s really a different ballgame. I took my training and even then, I realised how difficult a task is to get the children to do something. In our classes we need to have focused attention and one on one classes to get the results and objectives that we have set. So a big thank you to my teachers and my team for their hard work. Even during the transition from offline to online, it was done so professionally by them

Sandhya Swaminathan

‘More than creating art, I love sharing the knowledge’

When I started out with sketching, I used to make sure that I would sketch every single day so that I could get better at it. I had a lot of time and my parents were a lot supportive of my choice. Initially when I started, I didn’t know that this could be a profession. After a year or two of me stretching, I got a call from my college whether I could do a workshop and that is when I really started teaching. Then I came to understand that I really loved sharing my knowledge on how to sketch. I conducted more workshops in schools and colleges.

‘Art has no age restriction’

I started doing workshops on my own for people of all age groups. I went around different cities and conducted them. I was out of my comfort zone and this changed me as a person too. After the end of the workshop, they have created something and that is where the satisfaction comes in. They will have a piece of their own work in their hand and that’s how people have loved the workshops and have come back for another session. I even had the privilege of judging a few art festivals and in all these processes, I also learned a lot. It can even be said to be an interactive workshop where I also get to know about a lot of different art works.

‘Every hand moves differently’

Everyone’s mind works differently, they observe things differently and I give them a chance to find their own method and creativity. I give them four or five methods and they can pick a method that they want to. Through this method, they do not have to struggle much with finding what’s best for them. Even though everything is online now, its going on really well and kids are sitting in zoom classes and learning to do art and paintings.

‘Giving a Ted talk was a big honour for me’

I have grown watching Ted talks and being able to be a speaker was such an honour for me. I am good at sketching so through that I tried to explain to the people that if you love something then you should go for it. Art is something you do more when you are a child and when you grow up, you don’t do a lot. But if you develop your skills, it can really help you. People usually belittle art and ask why I am following this as a profession but I have a good support system which includes my family. In the future I am hoping to learn new art forms and tools. My main goal is to teach and to share my knowledge and for artists or anybody doing something on their own. The platforms like NK give the right push to keep doing what we are doing.

Watch the full conversation here…