Areej Atallah a 22-year-old Saudi from Jeddah who studied graphic design in Dar Al-Hekma designed a board game targeting Saudi children.
Madeenat Al-Khair was Atallah’s graduation project. The teacher asked each senior to design a unique idea, which reflects something they either love or hate. “I chose something that really bothered me and gave a creative solution to fix it,” said Atallah.“I always despise Saudi children who know nothing about their heritage and roam the streets without doing anything useful,”she added.
Madeenat Al-Khair is a well-fair city to teach Saudi children a little about culture and social responsibility. Atallah was inspired by her younger sister who used to spend her time watching TV all day, while claiming there was nothing better to do. “Children don’t like to be told what to do or to be ordered around, they should be taught to do things in a fun, creative way,” said Atallah. The game is made of a fixable and colorful carton board. The board represents a city, which is divided into ten squares, and each square holds a name of an area, which is listed as a home, a school, an art center, and a mosque among others.
There are also 3 types of cards that the player will use; the pink cards are for a command for social activities; the green ones are attitude cards that teach children how to act appropriately towards their society through asking questions; and, finally the yellow cards, are drawing cards whereby a player has a time limit to draw something related to his/her culture. “The game aims to teach those children a little about social responsibility and Islamic behavior and to educate them about our Islamic culture and tradition,” said Atallah.
Atallah is looking to make this game official and sold in every game store in the kingdom. “I will be starting with Jeddah stores as I live there, but I later look to expand in every city in Saudi Arabia. I wish that every Saudi child would look at this game as an exciting, fun game with a twist of education” she expressed.