Ethan & Harriet Educational Puzzle Game Officially Launched In Lagos

Mrs Bunmi Williams. Founder/CEO Ethan & Harriet

Speech at Ethan & Harriet Official Launch on Thursday 25th August 2016 at Oriental Hotel. Lagos

Lola, is a lady I shared an office space with.

She moved back to Nigeria in 2012. She took interest in discovering Nigeria state by state. She started out from the south west as she was based in Lagos, and continued visiting various sites in each state and stopped at Edo state, when her job wouldn’t permit her to have time to go on her travels.

Her brother is coming to Nigeria for the first time in his life and she really wants to share our rich culture and heritage with him but her searched usually amounts to knot when she goes online.

It cannot be true that Nigeria has nothing to show, can it? No

But nobody is sharing it or telling our story. People are more interested in going abroad when holiday opportunities arise as there are no places of interest being promoted in our country and largely across the African continent.

The younger generation are growing up with little or no knowledge as to what beautiful heritage and strong history we have. Nobody seems interested. If we are not interested in our own, who else would be?

The westerners have made their own cultures very attractive and marketable to the rest of the world, that we are all beginning to adapt it to the detriment of our own ways. Not that it is wrong to learn and embrace our differences, but we shouldn’t replace ours.

Nigeria and the African continent are blessed.

Even our languages are at the risk of going extinct as we no longer speak it to our children and it is believed to be ‘uncool’ to speak our local dialect. --- When you go to Germany, they are taught in German, when you visit China, they are taught in Mandarin. So much so, that these languages are being taught globally across schools in many countries. However, with our own beautiful languages, we are being made to see them as inferior and a larger part of our children do not even understand their mother tongues.

Our national and cultural heritage is our responsibility to preserve and promote. No one else can do it for us but ourselves.

We need to focus our minds on Nigeria and Africa, steering up an interest in the knowledge of our country and building ourselves with strong personal identities.

Only those that truly care about this nation can change Nigeria. But you cannot care about a thing you know nothing about. Ethan & Harriet was founded to bridge the gap and reconnect our children with their heritage.

Learning about Nigeria should be a choice and not a chore, we want to impart this knowledge which is rapidly endangered through fun and games. From Nigerian to a broader African context we aim to promote education and knowledge about our rich culture, history and heritage. By education children through toys, which would in turn impart knowledge about African history in an engaging and appealing manner, we hope to bridge this gap.

Our product nurture creativity, imagination and youthful innovation. And through this we hope to instil strong ethical and cultural values in our children, building them into patriotic and passionate Nigerians with a strong sense of responsibility, taking ownership for and wanting to develop our country.

At Ethan & Harriet, we create fun ways to teach about our rich Nigerian story (history and cultural heritage).

The jigsaw puzzles are just one expression of our message. You see a puzzle, we see a transmission of knowledge from one generation to another.

Just like with adopted children, not knowing who their birth parents are, they always go looking for their biological parents. They want to know their roots, their source.

WHAT MAKES US NIGERIAN????

Is it our - skin colour?

- Geography/location

- Our languages

- Our foods, looks, resilience, beliefs?

- Or even our passport colour?

Well, I think it is our UNIQUENESS. That uniqueness is what differentiate us from other nationalities, and it is found and embedded in our roots – our heritage.

What makes us who we are?

How did we get where we are?

This is our story, this is our journey. It is our heritage --- We must own it. We must know it.

We must have and keep our own unique identities as Nigerians and Africans. We cannot continue to import foreign ones. Who we are is a function of so many things and our journey, stories of our fore-fathers and past heroes make up a significant part of this.

Our Uniqueness comprises of the fact that we are of many cultures but one nation and varying beautiful languages.

We must learn that amongst ourselves, our cultural differences and similarities are all to be celebrated. They should all be embraced. But first, one can only embrace that, which you are aware of. Then you can begin to celebrate it.

It is the true essence of who we are – Our History, Our Cultural Heritage belongs to no one else but us. WE MUST KNOW & OWN IT.

That’s the only way we can preserve it and ensure it is passed down from generation to generation, so we (NIGERIANS) do not become extinct.

CONCLUSION --

Like with anything in life that’s going to be a solid structure and stand high, you need a solid base, a strong foundation.

It is not by chance that Ethan & Harriet’s flagship products are puzzles. It is strategic. We want children to first of all know who they are – give them the basis, that foundation. Before we then open their minds to other rich aspects of our history and cultural heritage which would be embodied by our other products.

This is the beginning of a long journey that would never end because the history of Nigeria and Africa would never end.

Yes we want to build a foundation and educate our children but we’ve also identified that there are children that want to learn but do not have the means to participate in effective learning. So to this end, as part of our commitment to education and social development, we would be looking to give back and allocate 10% of our proceeds in providing healthier and conducive learning environments for children through our social impact initiative tagged ‘Ethan & Harriet Pals’. As this will be an ongoing project we hope to be able to impact so many lives.

In the first phase of this initiative, we have identified six schools, in partnership with Oando Foundation as beneficiaries (one from each geo-political zone) and we invite you to join us to gift 12,000 puzzles to students across Nigeria. Together we can touch lives.