Help Build Amiya's Clubhouse!

Hi everyone, my name is Rayanna West. My daughter, Amiya, and I are the faces behind Amiya’s Clubhouse. The creation of Amiya's Clubhouse is a mom's dream coming to life. Through Amiya's Clubhouse, I am not only able to service the community in which I grew up, I am able to create a legacy for my daughter. The idea of opening my own daycare has been a long time coming. Once I decided to study education, I knew that I wanted to create something of my own. Having Amiya only pushed me harder to achieve this goal.

I graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston with a Bachelor’s degree majoring in Early Childhood Education and a Masters in Early Childhood Education and Curriculum Development. In addition, I also possess the following certificates through The Department of Early Education and Care, EEC:

- Lead Teacher: Preschool

- Teacher: Preschool, Infant/Toddler

- Director: I

My passion and experience over the eight years I’ve taught has inspired me to open my very own daycare. I began my first teaching job at the West Roxbury YMCA as an infant teacher for a year. After giving birth to my daughter, I decided to change age groups. This led me to a preschool teacher position at the Martin Luther King School in Cambridge. I later became the lead teacher in the same school.After year four of teaching preschool, I returned to University of Massachusetts Boston for my Masters, and did an internship at The McKay School East Boston in a K2 classroom. Subsequently, I accepted a job at the Boston Renaissance Charter School as a preschool teacher. As evidenced by my experience, early childhood education holds a special place in my heart.

The mission at Amiya's Clubhouse is to provide quality child care that embraces children's innate desires to play and explore in natural and inclusive environments. Amiya's Clubhouse will support all children by providing a socially nurturing and physically inclusive environment that fosters early childhood development in all learning domains. Located in Boston, Amiya's Clubhouse will serve diverse families and their children, infants to five years old, introducing them to all the beautiful cultures that make up our community.

Children are naturally motivated to play. Within the walls of the center, I will use a play-based approach that involves both child-initiated and teacher-supported learning. The teachers will encourage learning and inquiry through interactions that aim to stretch their thinking to higher levels. First-hand experiences have proven to be most successful at motivating, stimulating, and supporting children in their development of skills, concepts, language acquisition, communication skills, and concentration. My play-based program will build on this motivation, using it as a context for learning. In this framework, children can explore, experiment, discover, and solve problems in imaginative and playful ways

The children at Amiya’s Clubhouse will also be given the opportunity to learn through STEM, the arts, and numerous physical activities. Not only will the teachers of Amiya’s Clubhouse teach these areas, I would like to have specialists from various areas of interest (I.e. physical educators, artists, musicians, puppet masters, etc.) come to the site to provide additional in-depth experiences for the children. For example, to more fully explore the arts by using creative expression, a specialist in theatre, storytelling, dance and music would come to visit. That specialist will teach a dance or music class consistently for a few days each month. So the vision for Amiya’s Clubhouse ... is to provide greatness for the children in my community.

ALL Donations will go to the creation of Amiya’s Clubhouse; from furniture to supplies and materials to ensure that the children will have everything they need. Please help me to fill the gap and provide childcare for families in need.