Quality of life,
something that most of us think about…
how can we improve the quality of our lives?
Those who do good deeds usually think how can they influence more people's quality of life?
And almost anyone who runs a business considers
a value or something that enhances the quality of life.
The reason we've gathered here today, is to find ideas to improve our lives' quality.
If we want to think about the way of improving it,
It might not be a bad idea to see what has happened?
What has had a great impact on our quality of life right now?
Let's mention an experience that we have all had.
An experience that no one in this room can claim to have not
What can it be?
All of you must have been born one day…
And that day all images are blurred
and the voices cause fear in us until we are embraced by our mothers.
And that moment, the first togetherness happens.
A moment that we experience peacefulness and safety
And this peacefulness and safety does not just belong to that very moment
In the first 6 months and up to the first 2 years of life
it strongly affects our lives.
Our behavior in the future, what happens to us when we face problems
how we deal with them, go back to those first moments of life.
And it's due to special conditions of the brain.
Special conditions that form 75% of the brain till the 3rd year of life
and 92% by the end the fifth year!
And 700 neuronal connections per second are being formed in child's brain.
What do they have to do with our quality of life in the future?
Studies and researches prove that human's future
is dependent on those important first 5 or 6 years of their life
To those moments in which the brain is in its
highest level of sensitivity and absorbance
None of the peaks of this diagram exceeds forth years.
Growth of all our capabilities happens before we are four.
And that's how the longitudinal studies show
if a person's first 6 years of life are different,
, his/her whole life would be different.
And this is related to the quality of their relationships.
The hospital they were born in, its equipment or the amount of money spent,
are not that much relevant.
It all depends on quality of that relationship
Let's mention a research…
A research says mothers who have spoken to their child during the first one or two years
while breast feeding, expressed and shared their feelings and emotions and communicated;
however; the child didn’t seem to understand or could not talk,
had children with linguistic capabilities eight times stronger than others!
Eight times!
Considering other fields, where would you be if you could lift
weight eight times heavier than others?
We should be probably looking for you on Olympic platform
Same thing happens to linguistic growth.
They have linguistically grown as much as literal geniuses
and their vocabulary have formed.
As a result they can communicate easier in the future,
find jobs easier, have more capabilities and can express them well.
It is deeply dependent on an important thing! A togetherness…!
Let's go back to the first moment you are in your mother's embrace.
I don’t think if the mother thinks about anything else
but being with her child at that moment…
I'm not sure about this but perhaps the child
child doesn’t think of anything else but her/his mother, too.
And that relationship is full of togetherness and nothing will take them apart.
Little by little this togetherness becomes less and less
And then there will be moment when we are together,
we travel together, we eat together, we go out together
But aren’t necessarily together!
Like that being together…which means his/her obsessions, feelings and all, be yours.
There are times when children face food.
When spoon goes into their mouth or someone
goes after them to give them food
But when you hear 3 or 4 year old kids deciding to
make pizza and then they think what do they need to make that food?
They think what might it have?
And then they go to supermarket, grocery store and choose. They touch…
Which one's ripe? Which one's green?
Then they buy some, replace them… and say: I'm tired, I can't anymore…
these are the moments when the togetherness is being shaped.
And then this food will be ready after two or three hours.
But what they eat tastes totally differently.
This idea led to establishment of "Hamnava" institution.
To find out a way for creating togetherness if people's quality of life
depends on these first 5 or 6 years of life and if it depends on being together.
How can we change this downward slope and
turn these "just living with each other" to "living together"?
When your son comes to you and gives you a bag of nuts
and says: dad, can you open it for me?
I can open it in less than 30 seconds and give it and let him go eat.
But I can kneel down and say: Well, how can we open this?
What do you think it contains?
Let's see which ones do you like and how they taste…
Then he might say let's drag it or he might think
and go get scissors or many other things.
But those 30 seconds might turn to 3 minutes or in my case, twenty five minutes!
Those are the moments that happiness and joy come along
and we use all these situations in life
When we get up, eat, go out, go for a walk and go to park.
How can each and every one of these moments
change to moments of being together?
A moment that… we are not just there! We are there together now!
I mean let's feel for a moment how can you with people around you and me,
and me with you BE present?
And this might even happen in a puppet show.
There are simple moments when you are out in a street
street with your child holding your hand and are walking and he is leading you.
Let's see one of these simple being togethers:
I enjoy being with kids and this is an experience from shopping in fact…
well, we do shopping a lot and it most of the times bores Noora.
She wants me to spend time for her, talk to her,
look at different types of spaghettis together…
she really enjoys these things! We always say: "no, come on, we are in hurry"
Today, one of his best experiences was entering the numbers all by himself.
I never told him my PIN but he entered it today…he has a great feeling.
What happened here was that by stores' design and
using things kids like, we can attract kids' attention
Different togetherness will shape: talking together, working together, thinking together…
And these togethers will stretch, will become lengthier.
Time will pass and we will not be able to access it anymore,
but we can spend it together.
We may think that: well in many cases we don’t have time,
we should allocate some time to experience these being togethers.
But I hardly think if we can find a mother who says:
well, I'm feeling sick this week and I have much to do…
So I won't cook for a week, instead I'll make them a great meal
on the weekend and we'll eat it together.
There's no way you can pile all these up and
compensated it in one single situation.
You should collect these times one by one,
10 seconds by 10 seconds, 30 seconds by 30 seconds
and 3 hours by 3 hours…
So that the key incident to kids, to their quality of life happens.
This was the moment we thought how can we put it into a
more consistent and longer program?
A project was formed in Zarand in Kerman called "a town for kids"
and a lot of different events were supposed to happen to this town
so as to increase the moments of being together.
Through a program in a festival forty volunteers from Tehran and Zarand
changed the town's main park to a game center for three days. Let's see:
Using simplest facilities and the games kids play, the best is taken out of it.
I've been living here for years; however,
never enjoyed this much for being in this park before.
My daughter had so much fun the first day that she called her cousin in Kerman
and invited him and some friends to come and participate in this festival
I mean very simple things! But things that we were unable to see…
A feature of this togetherness is that it needs
nothing but us and our kids…nothing else…
And it turns that moment to an incredible moment like an elixir.
The result of longitudinal studies which surveyed kids from the age of 3 to 30-40 shows that
Those who experienced more being togethers,
can shape better relations, have less social problems,
very few of them are jobless and have high-paying jobs.
So it might be a unique opportunity for
an ever-lasting impact. A key quality in human's life…
And some of you might have kids;
some other may have little brother or sister,niece and nephew
Or you might be a nurse or a designer or a photographer…
How can you create this ever-lasting impact?
You might want to put your time, energy and money to play a role
in the foremost point in an investment
Or you may run a campaign or you may help more families
to be aware of the importance of these key moments.
If now is not the right time, when is it?
If we are not the one, then who is it?
Thanks