"On a shelf in a shop that sold lots of things

Like pencils and paper and big balls of string

Like paintbrushes, scissors and easels and

Clay and a blue butterfly made of paper maché

There sat on a shelf near a pink parakeet

A chair on his own, a chair they called … SEAT"

It’s the opening chapter in the remarkable children’s story SEAT: The Little Stool That Could … A fictional story centred around a bamboo stool – one that is simple in both design and construction. At first glance, it’s a rather ordinary product, but this is one stool with an extraordinary message and a fascinating tale of how it came to be.

Born out of the Hands That Shape Humanity project, a global movement involving 76 notable actors, authors, scientists and philanthropists with the aim of inspiring human potential, the SEAT project (Sustainable, Education, Art, Team building) is fast growing into an exciting movement driving social change.

FROM CONCEPT TO ADAPTATION

The woman behind the project is Virginia Bruce, owner of the Sydney-based r.e.a.l store. With a background in marketing, Bruce was part of a team that ran the mentoring project Hand Up at the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales for which students were asked to design an “ordinary product with an extraordinary message”. It was through the program that student Niki Banados came up with the idea of SEAT in 2009.

“When she presented us with the product and her prototype – it was a self assembly seat in a little box, a little bit Ikea-ish – it immediately spoke to the idea of a reading chair,” Bruce says. “It’s a very clever product and it’s really well designed. She’d talked about sustainability, she’d talked about an opportunity for Third World communities where they could get the benefit of doing the manufacturing, and I looked at it and thought ‘this could work’. It definitely appealed to me from the perspective of the reading and for little kids. So I suggested to her we look at partnering with a literary foundation to develop it.”

Bruce approached the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation (ALFN) founder Kim Kelly and asked if she wanted to get involved. “[ALNF] loved the idea and saw it as a catalyst for community engagement. The idea of it being delivered into communities and allowing the kids to unpack the seat and build it themselves and create a reading circle, we knew that it would work, particularly when there is a struggle to get kids to school.”

TACKLING LITERACY

Currently only one in five indigenous children in remote communities can read at a minimum standard, according to ALNF, but that’s an issue Kelly is aiming to tackle.

“If you can’t read and write you don’t have any opportunities,” Kelly says. “I think Australia needs to get behind change when it comes to our indigenous kids and give them the same opportunities that kids get in the cities, and I think SEAT does that.”

Kelly says she jumped at the opportunity to partner with the SEAT project as a way of raising awareness and funds for the foundation. “It was quite a difficult charity to start because most people thought ‘well the education department is supposed to do that’. When it comes to our health we don’t care that we’ve got a charity for every single external and internal organ of our body and every disease but when it comes to education people think just one entity that should be solving that problem. That is why SEAT is so good because it creates awareness, it raises funds for ALNF and it helps change that mindset.”

Taking a multi-pronged, multi-disciplinary approach to learning, SEAT and its associated curriculum teaches children about sustainability practices used during the product’s construction in a remote Vietnamese village and how it provides jobs for the community there.

Through the construction process students learn teamwork and problem solving, and the decorating of the stool encourages creativity. “A lot of these kids have very, very little so even having their own seat will be fantastic – it gives them a sense of pride, it gives them a message to that people care about their outcomes,” Kelly says.

Schools and individuals are able to purchase SEAT with 20 per cent of the price going to ALNF. A proportion of seats will also be delivered to remote communities and schools that ALNF is working with.

With ambitions far beyond its calling as a simple stool, Bruce hopes SEAT will be used to inspire communities, schools, adults and children alike. “There is a great opportunity for kids, parents, schools and communities to engage in what is a positive message, and during the process, have fun.”

You can purchase SEAT from therealstore.com.au for $55 with 20 per cent of the purchase price going to ALNF. The children’s book, SEAT: The Little Stool That Could … 
is available at therealstore.com.au for $20.