Amalia's World: Opening doors to the universe of neuroscience and emotional education in Cuba

To understand the dimensions of a project like El Mundo de Amalia (Amalia’s World), you have to use all your senses. Not because it is complex, but because of everything it encompasses. It is enough to do a small search on Google to appreciate the passion of its creato, Ana Mahe. She confesses that she cannot but speak with this same enthusiasm about the project.

“El Mundo de Amalia_ DIDÁCTICA is a space to learn everything we can do to form happy children, to seek and find solutions! It is an online Didactic Toy Store… and much more!

“One fine day in June, Amalia was born, a beautiful and special little girl; she is missing a little piece of chromosome 4. So began my experience as a mother.

“I knew nothing about special needs children, much less about stimulation. I learned a little bit of everything and we ended up searching, designing and creating toys and games for her education, with the valuable advice of her teachers. I think I experienced the need for didactic toys like no one else; that’s why I had the idea of creating a toy store.

“Then Mauricio arrived and by then we already had a lot of experience and many plans and dreams. Mauri is the result of everything we learned with Ami.”

So reads the venture’s official Facebook page. This is how El Mundo de Amalia came about, a project that supports early childhood education, based on the growth of the whole family. With special emphasis on emotional education and neuroscience applied to education, it promotes respect for children and addresses their needs in a personalized manner.

The objective of its spaces, both physical and virtual, is to provide cognitive and material tools, as well as emotional support for children to develop.

To this end, the project includes exchanges, counseling and workshops for adults, because in order to raise happy boys and girls, it is important to prepare and educate those who, perhaps for the first time, undertake these roles. This is precisely the starting point of the project: children are a reflection of our education and attitude, of the environments in which they develop, of the harmony and coherence of the family.

This endeavor is accompanied by the Ludoteca El Mundo de Amalia, a play center offering educational toys made in Cuba for children between 6 months and 4 years of age; the Para la Vida Project, offering learning experiences and toys for children between 5 and 10 years old; El Mundo de Amalia, a store offering didactic toys, all made in Cuba and produced by private enterprises; Cuentos para Mauricio (Stories for Mauricio), with books and materials for Emotional Education, created by Mae; and FloreSer, a project that promotes Emotional Education with a gender approach in Cuban state-run day care centers, through joint work with private day care centers.

The endless learning and emotions associated with these experiences can be enjoyed at Casa Lela, the headquarters that hosts all the Personal Growth projects of TRAGALUZ SRL, located on 9th Street, #13001, corner of 130th, Playa.