Saudi toymaker helps Arab children connect with heritage

• Her toys reflect Islam, Arab culture, says founder Shahd Al-Athel
• For example, promotes play with palm and not pine, Xmas trees

MAKKAH: The Jawlah Foundation in Saudi Arabia has been creating toys and games since 2020 to give children a deeper connection with Arab culture while improving their cognitive abilities.

Founder Shahd Al-Athel, a Saudi Arabia academic, who spoke to Arab News recently, said the company was founded because she saw “a clear gap in the content of children’s toys.”

Al-Athel said many of the products on the market for children “does not reflect our Islamic environment or represent the identity of our Arab children.”

“For instance, instead of playing with toys such as palm trees, children were engaging with Christmas trees and pine trees.”

Al-Athel’s formative years were in the US, which she says shaped her childhood activities and ideas on traditions, and she felt disconnected from her heritage.

While her friends in the US engaged in customs that reflected their identity and heritage, she yearned to do so herself.

At 15, Al-Athel moved to Saudi Arabia, where she experienced the warmth of family relationships and the richness of Arab and Islamic culture for the first time.

In the Kingdom, Al-Athel developed a sense of belonging, and gained a great deal of knowledge about her identity at secondary school by engaging in activities with fellow learners.

At university, Al-Athel decided to specialize in education. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education from the University of Hartford in the US, followed by a master’s degree in educational technology and digital design from New York University.

Al-Athel said she worked for the children’s television show “Sesame Street” in New York, contributing to the development of English-language content tailored for a culturally diverse audience.

However, she felt that the work did not align with her ambition to create educational content for Arab children, prompting her to leave the company.

Returning to Saudi Arabia, she joined Saudi Aramco and worked at the entrepreneurship center Wa’ed, which serves as an incubator for businesses and startups.

Al-Athel spent a year at Wa’ed, during which she learned the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and gained experience in project management that would ultimately prepare her to establish her own company.

After giving birth to her first son, Abdullah, the family moved to Malaysia. As a dedicated mother keen on shaping his identity, she sought methods to teach Abdullah Arabic.

However, she found it challenging to find suitable educational materials for this purpose.

These were all experiences that inspired her to eventually create Jawlah.