Traveling with kids can be a hassle. Traveling abroad with kids can be absolutely treacherous. Racing through airports, sitting through long-distance flights and navigating unfamiliar cities with tired children in tow—any number of things might happen to turn a vacation into a nightmare.
That’s what Akeelah Kuraishi and Tim Minnick discovered when they decided to take their two young boys to Italy a few years ago.
“The 8 hour flight nearly killed us,” Kuraishi jokingly said.
The trip made them wonder if there was a better way to teach children about foreign cultures without having to endure extended travel.
The answer, they decided, was yes, and Little Global Citizens is the company they founded last year as a result.
Every two months, Little Global Citizens sends curated boxes containing kid-centric and culturally relevant material from a country outside of the United States. Past boxes have covered Kenya, the United Kingdom, Peru and China for children ages three to eight years old.
For $32.95, each box includes a child’s guide, crafts and recommended activities for the family to partake in. The Kenyan box, for example, contained safari animal figurines, DIY binoculars, crafts demonstrating Kenyan customs like mask-making and a recipe for a Kenyan dish. Kids were also taught the Swahili greeting, "Karibuni," and given a keepsake Kenyan flag.
“This is our way of teaching our children about cultures of the world during a time when we're not necessarily going to be traveling as extensively as we want to,” Kuraishi said. “We're bringing the world to them.”
Kuraishi and her husband think Little Global Citizens can help other parents raise more globally conscious children in a world that is growing evermore interconnected.
“With globalization happening at a breakneck speed, kids in this country are going to grow up in an increasingly global environment,” Kuraishi said. “The children they go to school with and the people they end up working with are going to be from all around the world. It’s important to understand other people's cultures, beliefs and values in order to be a good member of the global society and to be successful in the workplace.”
Of course, you can’t distill an entire culture into a box, so Kuraishi said the packages are intended as “jumping off points for greater engagement and involvement for the entire family.” She said Little Global Citizens isn’t meant to replace a genuine travel experience. Rather, Kuraishi hopes it will help families who might not have the luxury to travel inspire their kids to be curious and considerate about the people and places beyond their borders. And hey, maybe it will even encourage some parents to finally brave that family trip abroad.
