TV teaches children the importance of sharing

A cable TV channel is out to prove that while "kids will always be kids," quite a number of them care about what is happening to their community and to the people around them. Nickelodeon recently relaunched its Big Help campaign that shows that every little bit counts.

Six "action words" the nationwide pro-social campaign are Visit, Fix, Clean, Give, Share, and Care. This year, the campaign has chosen to focus on the word "share."

The Big Help ambassador Makisig Morales

Nickelodeon viewers or Nicksters aged two to 14 years old are encouraged to share in whatever way they can with their toys, books, clothes or time.

The project aims to get kids to help other kids, their parents, their school, village, city, country as well as the environment.

The Big Help campaign started in 1994 in the United States and reached Asian shores in 2002. Nickelodeon discovered that kids want to help but didn’t know how to.

In 2003, The Big Help gave lucky Filipino Nicksters a chance to win a 4-minute grab-all-you-can "toy run" at a local toy store. While they got to keep the toys, the cash value equivalent of what they picked was matched by Nickelodeon and given to Springboard Foundation for their Give-a-Life project.

The cable TV channel then embarked on The Big Help Christmas Run in 2004 through a lighting ceremony around a "Nick-mas" tree. The donations from the project were then turned over to benefit the children of Banago Seaport in Bacolod City.

This year, Nickelodeon joins hands with Gawad Kalinga-Batang Bayani, a group of grade school volunteers who help raise funds, join building activities in the villages, interact with beneficiary kids and encourage other kids to help build houses for kids in need.

Big Help 2007 will take a big step in fund raising, assist home-building in GK-Batang Bayani and promote value formation programs.

Aside from the partnership with GK-Batang Bayani, Nickelodeon recently launched its Big Help Special Edition Canister promo and introduced the country’s first Big Help ambassador, child actor Makisig Morales.

As the cable TV channel’s Big Help emissary, he will spread the importance of sharing by attending Nickelodeon Big Help events and promoting it in his various TV stints.

Meanwhile, the five-month campaign of the Big Help Special Edition Canister promo includes a design competition open to all Nicksters. Entries should focus on the "sharing" theme. The best design will then be used to cover 10,000 empty cans that will be distributed to schools to raise funds to benefit KFC-Batang Bayani Kapasigan Village, a GK-Batang Bayani community based in Pasig.

The culminating event, "The Big Help Day" will be on Dec. 1. By then, kids should have already imbibed the importance of caring about people other than themselves.

For more information, log on to www.nicksplatcom/bighelp

Start ’em young

Children today are barraged left and right by so many "voices." Schoolmates, bus mates and friends pull them this way and that. Add television to the mix and you have a very potent cocktail — or in their case, mixed fruit shake.

Parenting counselor Maribel Dionisio advises moms: To develop your children’s ability to make decisions as they grow into the world, start them young. This can be as simple as giving them the opportunity of choosing what to wear, what to eat, where to go — of course, with clever steering by mom.

An aspect which strongly influences children’s attitudes in their grown-up years is the experience of seeing their mothers spending the time to prepare their snacks.

"That memory is priceless," says Melissa Fernandez-Abaya of the Little Apprentice School.

It is not too difficult to present children with "mom-made" sandwich choices.

"The nice thing about Lady’s Choice Mayonnaise is that it is made with fresh, six-day-old eggs and pure soybean oil," said another mom who attended the mom-and-kid bonding session held at The Palms Country Club recently.

During the full-day get together, it was heartening to watch the children and moms put together sandwiches using fillers like turkey, chicken, sausage and tuna.


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TV teaches children the importance of sharing

Start ’em young