Rika Terblanche ensures mind moves for babies
For many, finding your passion is a journey. For some, it takes longer than others but eventually, you find it
POLOKWANE – Oprah Winfrey once said: “what I know is, is that if you do work that you love, and the work fulfils you, the rest will come”.
For many, finding your passion is a journey. For some, it takes longer than others but eventually, you find it.
For Rika Terblanche, it took reading an article on Baby Gym for her to find her passion and move away from personal training, which she is qualified in. After getting in touch with Baby Gym founder, Melodie de Jager, Rika took the course which would change her life forever.
She started Baby Gym in 2007.
On her journey, Rika says, she usually moves onto something different after three years, but her passion for working with children was ignited and she couldn’t ignore that passion. However, she felt she needed something more to do and that is when she got involved with the Mind Moves Institute, the “older brother” of the Baby Gym programme, which prioritises physical development in children to form a foundation for all emotional, social and intellectual skills.
Rika explains Baby Gym is preventative cure and Mind Moves is therapy. Having worked with babies for many years, Rika is now able to identify areas in which the infants might be lacking, and to rectify the problems through her programmes.
“I am empowering parents with the knowledge that they need for their children to develop properly.”
She has also worked with special-needs children as well as adults who have had strokes or heart attacks and she says she can see the difference and improvement her therapy has had on those she helps.
Rika says the most rewarding part about doing what she does is seeing the difference in those she works with. It is also rewarding, she says, to be recognised for the work she does. “When parents phone me to tell me how well their children are doing and to thank me for what I have done, that is special.”
She further says it is fulfilling to know that parents trust her with their children. “What I have learnt is that life is precious and that I must continue with what I am doing, I must change lives.”
