I was lucky enough to teach in the Early Years department of a diamond mining community in the stark Kalahari Desert of Botswana. As the mine was in the early stages of construction, contractors from a variety of backgrounds came to work there.
For some children it was quite traumatic attending a new school in a foreign land where people spoke in different languages.
To bring some comfort to such children, I asked their parents to decorate a small, unobtrusive cardboard disc with an encouraging message written on it. The disc could be put in a pocket or backpack and only the child would know it was there.
If a child was feeling a little sad, he or she could hold the badge and know that someone was thinking about them. That inevitably made them smile.
Soon the little discs were being used for other purposes such as parents working away from home, someone in hospital etc.
From the effectiveness of this little disc was born the concept of Pod IGT and his Magical Memory Badge.