Christmas Challenge: children’s acts of kindness that will blow your mind

“It’s not fair that I receive a gift for Christmas and other children don’t!” (Elvira, 10 years old)

We often think that we need to teach children a lot of things, but what we might not realize is that there is so much we can learn from them!

Last year, Lifetime Malta organised the Christmas Challenge with the aim of raising social awareness in younger generations and bring some magic, during the festive season, to families in distress supported by the Millennium Chapel. With the active involvement of the Foundation for Educational Services and some local schools, in particular St Catherine’s, 70 children grasped the opportunity to express their kindness by creating toys as Christmas gifts for their less fortunate peers.

“Although we launched a campaign without indicating the type of toys to submit in order to enhance creativity and originality, we were still expecting mostly soft toys… But when we received all entries, we were speechless!” said Natalia Lupu, the founder of Lifetime Malta.

A nine-year-old boy, Jake Said, built an impressive three-storey car park out of card board, with guide signs, parking lot lines and even a car wash. The gift contained several cars of different colours and the highlight of Jake’s message was, “The joy of giving is immense and the emotion it brings is priceless… Because we are all brothers and sisters”.

A total of 76 original toys were created: a doll’s house, table soccer, robot, fishing game, passju, bowling and skittles, puzzles, etc., all beautifully crafted by children using recycled material and, why not, a mother’s old chopping board like in the case of Antonio’s tic tac toe?

“I must say that the office looked like a toy shop and some of the toys wouldn’t fit in the car! But we were delighted to deliver them to the Millennium Chapel families and spark their Christmas. We are grateful to Ivana, who has been striving for years in helping others, for allowing us this privilege!” said Martin Ward, Lifetime Malta partner.

Thanks to generous supporters such as

Logo Express, The Lions Club Sliema, Hudson Holdings and others, participants received prizes based on originality and quality of their creation (GoPro camera, Mini Projector, Telescope, Kindle, clothing and bowling vouchers etc.).

So, who won the Christmas Challenge? Her name is Elisabeth Bañez and she is 10 years old. Inspired by Monopoly and Maltese culture, Elisabeth created an astonishing board game called Go Malta. This fun game was made for entertainment and educational purposes by including valuable local sites, traditional experiences and public feasts celebrated in Malta.

This talented girl received a GoPro camera for her outstanding work and her reply was “it is not winning but taking part that counts!” After discovering that Elisabeth is passionate about coding, our main sponsor, Exient, an influential mobile phone developer and publisher based in Malta (creator of Angry Birds Go, Lemmings & F1), invited her to spend a day during summer at their premises and learn what it means to work in videogames.

But this is not all! Thanks to the Eden Superbowl donation, 11 disadvantaged families in Malta received vouchers for an amazing bowling experience. Playmobil Fun Park surprised children with 74 “Secret Agent” toys. Whereas public collections and generous discounts from the Model Shop and Esplora, enabled Lifetime Malta to purchase educational toys for 77 underprivileged children and adult tickets to Esplora for 37 families to have an exciting experience.

The shine in children’s eyes and parents’ tears of joy, while receiving gifts, was by far the most beautiful Christmas present for the entire team.

The founder of Lifetime Malta wishes to express her gratitude towards everyone mentioned above who supported the Christmas Challenge and also teachers and parents who encouraged children to take part; Deco Manufacturing for providing their outlets for toys collection and Slick Experience for crafting their web content. In addition, Natalia would like to emphasise the following: “This challenge was an adventurous journey, the result of which exceeded our expectations and, although we were told by some that it wouldn’t really work, we are proud to have made a success out of it!”

All journeys have their highlights. Here’s another example: 11-year-old Luca Magro crafted an extraordinary “creative board” with tools to make a marble run, a water wall or a magnet board. A wonderful toy inspired by Esplora Science Centre to develop logic and creativity. But the true significance of Luca’s contribution lies in his heartwarming message: “Apart from this gift, I want to wish you the gift of love, the gift of kindness, the gift of hope and the gift of joy!”

This is a remarkable story which proves to us that kindness still exists.

And we shall conclude with Natalia’s inspirational quote: “Any form of education starts with kindness. Children have an enormous potential and it is our duty to provide them with opportunities to explore it!”

For more information about Lifetime Malta check www.lifetimemalta.com or Facebook page www.facebook.com/lifetimemalta