For a community where toys are not a regular thing for children, it was good to see a wee one cuddling a doll made from banana leaves during school playtime at Uphill.
Commenting on this to one of the teachers, she said, “We can all make them.” My reply was, “Please can you show me how.”
A couple of days later, out on the veranda between the classrooms of P1 and P2, the kids created a huge pile of dried banana leaves collected from beneath the nearby trees.
A couple of basins of water were used to scrunch up the leaves and soften them, then all the kids got stuck in and began forming the leaves into dolls. Starting with a solid ball for the head, they split long leaves for arms and body, adding more as required. All the pieces were tied in place with more strips of leaves. and the arms and legs were wound round to make them firm.
The kids’ hands are really strong, and they made short work of making very solid dolls. Their knot-tying was maybe not quite so dextrous but with a little teamwork they were soon finishing the job. All shapes and sizes of dolls had been made, some even had clothes, made from plastic bags.
An hour passed in a flash and the resulting creations were super. Hands-on learning at its best.
Some of the other kids who didn’t want to make a doll used the banana leaves to plait into skipping ropes, while a few of the boys made new footballs to use at playtime.
The balls are made out of layers of plastic carrier bags bound with stretchy strips of fabric to make them extremely solid. These footballs are in high demand on the school field every day as a conventional inflatable football doesn’t stand up to the rough ground and spiky trees for any length of time.
Requests to bring some of the dolls back to UK from our supporters who saw the first photos on our social media posts was really nice but it will have to be a “work in progress” project at the moment.
We’d need some Quality Control and then there’s the potential biohazard problem, but we will work on that for the future. Maybe we need to find something growing in the UK that works as well as banana leaves?
Banana leaf dolls will be on the list for further development as a fundraiser for Uphill Junior School.
Tags: banana leaf dolls, hands on learning, Uphill Junior School
