“Eat your veggies.”

“Keep your room clean.”

“Listen to your parents.”

Those are some values parents might find hard to promote to their children. Some might even lose their patience and start yelling at their children.

But in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh, six storytellers narrated stories interactively to 40 kindergarten and playgroup children last Saturday to instill such values in a more creative way.

With expressive gestures, they kept their audience spellbound as they told the stories using different voices and a few simple props during the International Storytelling Festival Indonesia 2017 (FDII 2017), held by the Ayo Dongeng Indonesia (AyoDI)
community.

“I will create a potion that will make children lazy and hate fruits and vegetables,” said a witch in a story about the importance of having a balance between playing, eating healthy food and engaging in physical activity to maintain fitness presented by Bintang Nutricia team.

When a child named Dita, portrayed by another storyteller, was about to drink the potion, the children listening to her screamed “No, don’t drink it!”.

The event, supported by various parties including infant formula producer PT Nutricia Indonesia Sejahtera, which is part of Danone Indonesia, aims to spread the magic of storytelling to children and parents across the country.

Held in six major cities — Banda Aceh, Yogyakarta and East Java’s Surabaya, as well as West Java’s Bandung and Bogor on Nov. 11, as well as Jakarta a week before — the event involved about 150 local and international storytellers, as well as hundreds of children and parents.

In Banda Aceh, Cahyono Budi Dharmawan from AyoDI told the children a tale about Fufu, a small puffer fish who preferred to play all day and refused to listen to his parents who told him to lock the door while they were away, causing a shark to get into his house and attempt to eat him.

A local storyteller named Aris used simple props such as a pen, mineral water bottles and a rearview mirror to tell the story of Bram, a child that played with his smartphone all day and forgot to study. In the story, Bram regrets his actions as he finds out he received poor grades at school.

“Storytelling is a way of communicating [between adults and children],” Rika Endang Triyani, a storyteller from AyoDI told The Jakarta Post.

Thirty-year-old Yani, who brought her three-year-old Enzo and seven-year-old Felica to the event in Banda Aceh, said educating the children through storytelling was better than yelling at them.

“I love to tell everything to my children in the form of stories because it is easier for them to understand,” Yani said. “It also inspires my children to speak in public.”

While the event was fun for the children, it also targeted the parents, who were expected to initiate more storytelling for their children.

“We want to spread this ‘storytelling virus’ to every parent as much as to children,” said Fauziah Syafarina from Danone Indonesia, who believed that storytelling could also improve the bond between parents and their children, which would help the children listen better to their parents.

Storytelling is also believed to be a tool that could encourage children’s creativity and improve their cognitive development.

That day, Rika, who was the last storyteller performing in Banda Aceh, wrapped up the event while saying to the children: “Don’t forget to ask your parents to tell you some stories before bed.”

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