P•COQ – puppetry in a magic box

My friend Dora teamed up with other two Budapest mums to create a toy that develops children’s emotional intelligence and helps even beyond that.

Szandra Nagy, Nóra Nardai and Dóra Vimola founded P•COQ in 2014 and launched their crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo this month and they have only a couple of days left.

P•COQ is a boxed puppet theater with stories that are ready to play and help with everyday parenting issues.

“Face-to-face storytelling strengthens family bonding and smooths out conflicts. This is why we think it is so important. I see a future where the P•COQ puppeteers share parenting issues and answers, inspire each other with their own stories in a multicultural online community.” – says Dóra Vimola (40), mother of three eight-year-olds. After leaving the finance business, she became a photographer, studied art therapy and organizes creative arts-and-crafts events for kids. She is also a founder of KreARTON, a creative cardboard toys brand.

“I’m excited about our future, because I see the many ways P•COQ will be able to further entertain families. We are planning various puppet play series: folk tales, seasonal topics and stories that build tolerance and empathy. We want to provide DIY support to those customers who wish to personalize P•COQ puppets, sets and props. The team is working on out-of-home formats as well.” – explains Nóra Nardai (40), mother of two boys: a toddler and a three-year-old, working 15 years in the advertising business.

“The core concept of P•COQ is to provide families with real-life, tangible support, beyond entertainment and developing emotional intelligence. Each P•COQ order brings us closer to the point when we can ask women in mothers’ shelters to help us with crocheting, to help them make their own income and rebuild their self-esteem that is necessary for a new start. We believe in the right of every mother to maintain a safe and loving home for their children.” – says Szandra Nagy (38) a mother of a four-year-old, working 17 years in advertising.

P•COQ puppet theaters are handmade with love, using recycled, natural, lasting or biodegradable materials.

The P•COQ box comes with the theater, the sets, props, a family of puppets and their accessories. The designers understood that parents are often exhausted at the end of a long day, so they support the storytelling with a cheat-sheet that can be downloaded to mobile devices. The product’s website contains practical hints and background reads on parenting and puppet play.

The artwork is story-neutral, families can add a personal touch to their P•COQ whenever they are in a creative mood, designing their own characters and playing their own stories. „Open-ended playing” with the help of the product, is an extremely valuable learning process, during which the child can improve creativity, self-reflection and patience. The rather raw design is not just a sign of minimalist aesthetics, it rather serves to encourage the players to shape their own, personalized stories.

The first series of P•COQ stories address common parenting issues:

tantrums,
timing,
fear,
eating problems,
bathroom issues,
sleeping,
aggression,
siblings tensions.

Families around the world face basically the same parenting challenges. The values of storytelling and puppet play are universal too. The Hungarian team wants to bring P•COQ to many homes in many countries.