The owner of Kids Academy in Midrand Minisha Naidoo hopes to teach children about bullying in lower income areas.
Kids Academy is a programme that improves the self-confidence of children and anti-bullying through age-appropriate self-defence techniques. It caters for children between the ages of five and 11 years who have experienced verbal, physical and cyberbullying.
Naidoo currently operates from Carlswald and Montecello Estate. “I want to reach out to all children and my plan is to hold workshops in low income areas at a discounted fee,” she said.
Naidoo bought into the Kids Academy franchise which has been in existence for five years in South Africa. She said the programme had been designed by occupational therapists, child psychologists, teachers and trainers. According to her, children in private schools suffer more from verbal bullying compared to those in public schools who experience more physical bullying. “The self-defence technique is derived from Krav Maga and children will get graded according to their belts.”
Krav Maga is a military self-defence and fighting system taken from a combination of techniques sourced from boxing, wrestling, aikido, judo and karate.
Naidoo said her nine-year-old daughter was the motivation for her to start the programme. “With all the violence happening around, my daughter will one day go out and find herself in a situation and I won’t be able to protect her. That is one of the reasons that made me want to teach children about self-defence.”
She also hosts workshops for parents to raise awareness on bullying and to teach them how to deal with their children if they have been bullied. Her classes are a R375 per month with a once off enrollment fee of R170. She can be contacted at kidsacademymidrand@gmail.com
How do you deal with a bullied child? Tweet us @MidrandReporter
