For several months now, an edutainment park in
\nBucharest has been encouraging kids to learn by playing, in a centre designed
\nas a miniature city. Children have a chance to find out what profession they
\nmight be interested in, a more than welcome initiative given that in schools they
\nusually have access to theoretical, rather than practical information about
\nvarious occupations. We talked about the idea with marketing and communication
\nmanager Ana-Maria Pascaru:<\/p>\n
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Ana-Maria Pascaru: Destiny Park is in fact the first edutainment park in Romania. We
\nopened it on 2 September, so it’s been 4 months already. We are glad to have
\nbrought this concept to the Romanian market. Learning by playing is a
\nrelatively new concept in our country and it somehow completes the non-formal
\neducation kids are getting outside school curricula. We target children aged 4
\nto 14, which is quite a large age group, and our main goal, as I was saying, is
\nto educate by play. The centre is basically a miniature city, or as we like to
\nsay, a city run by children. There is an industrial area, with places where
\nchildren learn, for instance, about furniture manufacturing, or about dairy
\nprocessing or about agriculture and what the agriculture of the future will
\nlook like. There is another area focusing on medicine, with a dental clinic and
\na hospital with several wards, including a surgery section, an emergency room,
\na neonatal unit and ambulance service. In all these areas, we teach children
\nwhat certain professions are about. Obviously, we only cover the basics, we
\ngiven children some information, but we do it through play, which makes it easier
\nand more fun for kids to learn.<\/p>\n
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The marketing and communication manager Ana-Maria
\nPascaru highlighted the novelty that the experiences in this centre brings to
\nchildren’s lives: <\/p>\n
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Ana-Maria Pascaru: If you remember, in the past there were visits to parents’ workplaces.
\nI understand this is still a thing, but not in all companies. Destiny Park is
\nthe place where many children get in touch with certain professions for the
\nfirst time. These professions cover a wide range, from the IT sector to
\nmedicine, agriculture, industry, chemistry lab, airplane pilot and so on. And
\nit’s all very attractive to them, because they play and they learn.<\/p>\n
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The project initiators also thought about
\ngetting children familiar with the concept of social responsibility, so a
\nnumber of projects are under way, in which kids are encouraged to contribute:<\/p>\n
We
\nare running several campaigns of Environmental Corporate Social
\nResponsibility. We started off even before opening the park, even in
\nthe pandemic we had some activities with the Grigore Alexandrescu
\nhospital for children, then, in August, before opening, we had 2
\nweeks when we had 2,500 children visiting, children from
\ndisadvantaged backgrounds, or children with disabilities, with free
\naccess. This project continues. In December we started gathering what
\nwe call magic money. Magic money is the currency of our little city.
\nKids who enter the part, based on the ticket they purchased, get a
\ncheck, then some magic money. The first lesson is the economy lesson,
\nas we call it. The moment when they get this money, they can attend
\ncertain activities. For the fun ones they have to pay, and for the
\nones they work in they get paid a wage. The magic money represent the
\nDestiny Park currency, and we thought it would be nice to encourage
\nkids to donate, to learn civic spirit, to learn that giving is
\nbeautiful, and giving to kids of lower means is something they should
\ndo. As a result, we started setting aside money from kids. If they
\nrun out of money at the end of their experience, when the park tour
\nends, they can donate it, or take it home and use it again when they
\ncome back. This is how we started gathering magic money, and our
\nfoundation, through this gesture that is, after all, symbolic, turns
\nmagic money into tickets for disadvantaged children.<\/p>\n
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Kids
\ncome here to have fun, but they learn that work is very important
\ntoo:
\n<\/p>\n
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Some
\nonly work, others only try to have fun, but, as I told you, at some
\npoint they run out of money and have to work. They can’t ask their
\nparents for money, because everything happens with magic money. We
\nhave two kinds of tickets: three and a half hours, or a full day.
\nMost parents, especially on their first visit to the park, take the
\nthree and a half hour experience, since each experience is between 15
\nand 20 minutes. Upon entering, the kids can have a tour of the park.
\nThis is what we advise them and their parents, so they can see what
\nthey would like to do. So, one they get it, they pick and choose
\ntheir activities, where they want to go, and usually many of them are
\nvery happy to work, because they are proud of getting a salary.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ana-Maria
\nPascaru told us what older children enjoy and choose to do:
\n<\/p>\n
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The
\nolder ones, between 10 and 14, head to the more fun or more
\ninteresting activities. For instance, the Aviation Academy is a very
\npopular area with older children, because we have two real flight
\nsimulations, where the older children love playing. This is a very
\ndesirable area for the older kids, the same as the hospital area, or
\nthe Formula 1 simulator area.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We
\nfound out that most guides in the park know English, but many or them
\nalso speak Russian or French, so that the park is welcoming for
\nchildren of various nationalities.
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Destiny Park is the first edutainment park in Romania<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":137442,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42520],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-137441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inside-romania"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n