The entrepreneurial children with their stall at the Lakeshore Community Market in Ballinderry. From left: Justin Carroll, Rachel Bourke, Cathal Kennedy, Bobby O’Brien, Lucy Bourke and Ava Pearl Carroll.

Tipp's young entrepreneurs impress with Enable Ireland fundraiser

Published: Thu 12 Aug 2021, 8:19 AM

Six children attending a Tinkerin Myndz class in Aglish recently put their entrepreneurial skills to good use in aid of people with autism.

Established in October 2019, Tinkerin Myndz supports strong mental health and skill and confidence-building among children aged from 3 to 15. It runs workshops, games and activities throughout the year, and its Young Entrepreneurs Camp turned heads at the Lakeshore Community Market recently held in Ballinderry.

Working together as a team, the six children involved were given a budget of €50 and asked to create products to sell at the popular market. The products they came up with ranged from cakes to key-rings to activity books, and the kids were delighted to make a total of €252.31 from the sale of their work.

“All we did was just give them the ideas; they did all the work themselves,” said Sadie Slingsby of Tinkerin Myndz. The market idea was a surprise for the kids, who were told that they could either keep the money they raised and organise a party with it, or donate it to a charity of their choice.

Sadie said the children all wanted to give the money to a charity, and they discussed no fewer than 15 worthy causes that they were aware of. In the end, they elected to give the money they raised to Enable Ireland because all of them knew someone who has autism.

OUTSIDE THE BOX

Recently adding a toddler (18 months to 3 years) group to its offering, Tinkerin Myndz is a small but growing childcare service that encourages children to think independently.

“We don't do inside the box. We encourage children to be outside the box and to think open-minded for themselves,” Sadie explained. “We work with a lot of autistic children. We accept every child for who they are.”

Workshop activities include the likes of an ‘Imagination Station', where children act as characters in a story, dressing up for the parts they play. The exercise encourages children to use their own imagination.

Participants are organised into groups of a maximum of 10 children, though Sadie generally tries to keep the numbers lower so as to make the youngsters feel more comfortable.

She said Tinkerin Myndz was set up as a kind of off-shoot from her parents’ Cottage Garden Craftworks workshop enterprise. Sadie started doing craft workshops with children as a summer job, and this blossomed into the family-run business it is now.

While Covid-19 forced her fledgling business to close along with everyone else's, now that it has reopened Sadie has found a silver lining in the pandemic in that parents want to give their children the opportunity to socialise that were have been deprived of for so long. She was delighted with the success of the market initiative and took the opportunity to thank everyone who supported the children, including those who made donations, the village baker for supplying cakes, and of course the kids themselves.