Yesterday we learned a little more about the right to information. Manuel from IRFEYAL, Fe y Alegria´s sister radio organization, was there to introduce to kids what information is, what his job as a journalist actually consists in and how he makes it available to people. IRFEYAL is part of the general international popular education movement and provides all around Latin America distance learning classes to adults via its radio stations.After an interesting tent set up that lasted little longer than usual…we were finally able to start :-)Today, our team was actually somewhat larger than life; Henri and Santi had brought a few more CEFA girls interested in getting involved in our project. These girls immediately took the kids to some energetic warm up games.
Manuel then invited the kids to take a little virtual tour into the world of communications. He started out by asking them if they knew a story and if they wanted to share it… Swi
ftly, one of our little talkative ones perched herself on Santi´s arms to tell her own story to the group- her imagination is known to be vivid! After this introduction, and thanks to his calm voice and respectful demeanor, Manuel managed to catch the kids´ attention by asking them simple questions such as where does information come from, how does it actually come to you. ¨Through a very long cable¨ said a kid, ¨ through a person¨, added another one, ¨yes¨ Manuel confirmed, ¨and how do you call that person exactly?¨, ¨a journalist¨ shouted another kid.
ftly, one of our little talkative ones perched herself on Santi´s arms to tell her own story to the group- her imagination is known to be vivid! After this introduction, and thanks to his calm voice and respectful demeanor, Manuel managed to catch the kids´ attention by asking them simple questions such as where does information come from, how does it actually come to you. ¨Through a very long cable¨ said a kid, ¨ through a person¨, added another one, ¨yes¨ Manuel confirmed, ¨and how do you call that person exactly?¨, ¨a journalist¨ shouted another kid.Once that was clear, and the kids finally understood what Manuel was up to with his days, off we went back to how we could all listen or view a same information from a box that could be in any house across borders … the kids were captivated by this new world of abstract waves that indeed enables us to watch the ¨Chavo del ocho¨ in Ecuador as in Mexico… Manuel further stressed, ¨can 
you see those antennas?¨ pointing to the San Francisco rooftops, ¨thanks to these, we can receive an image coming from the other side of the world , like China¨. All the kids nodded reflectively until … some spotted a bride being carried across the Plaza, and dragged one of our team members to pinch our camera and capture the moment! And there goes a potential journalist, we all smiled…The aim of this session was to invite kids to develop inquisitive minds, observe, and ask themselves and others questions- not that we have an issue with that…all the kids are quite able to fend for themselves!
you see those antennas?¨ pointing to the San Francisco rooftops, ¨thanks to these, we can receive an image coming from the other side of the world , like China¨. All the kids nodded reflectively until … some spotted a bride being carried across the Plaza, and dragged one of our team members to pinch our camera and capture the moment! And there goes a potential journalist, we all smiled…The aim of this session was to invite kids to develop inquisitive minds, observe, and ask themselves and others questions- not that we have an issue with that…all the kids are quite able to fend for themselves!We then followed up thanking Manuel with a little investigative activity to create around the ¨Afiche Cultural CT¨. As we mentioned last week the intention with this was to divvy up the crew in small groups, a dance, music, sports & outdoors and last but not least, an arts group. We had a selection of cuttings of low-cost events taking place in Quito over the coming weeks and the aim was for each group to choose those of interest in order to create a ¨Cuentamelo Todo Calendar¨ of the Month. Next week we will have the selected upcoming events posted, and the idea is for each of our kids to feel free to feed in weekly events/activities (for free or under US$2) that may have caught their attention. To our surprise, the kids were excited to hear about the Nutcracker (and what that actually was) in the Teatro Sucre, the free ent
ry Christmas carols in the local churches, or the free exhibits at the water and science museums…During that time, Manuel, our star of the day, passed around the groups, and carried out a few interviews with the kids…What exactly was exchanged, we are not quite sure, and we will discover shortly as it turns out we were on air today…as we were on the Plaza with our Mobile Library (this is every Thursday) we actually missed it! …As soon as we get hold of the recordings, we´ll post the link…Fingers crossed on the outcome! ;0
ry Christmas carols in the local churches, or the free exhibits at the water and science museums…During that time, Manuel, our star of the day, passed around the groups, and carried out a few interviews with the kids…What exactly was exchanged, we are not quite sure, and we will discover shortly as it turns out we were on air today…as we were on the Plaza with our Mobile Library (this is every Thursday) we actually missed it! …As soon as we get hold of the recordings, we´ll post the link…Fingers crossed on the outcome! ;0To finish off yesterday´s session, some went off with the CEFA crew to play a game of touch volley on the plaza whilst the younger ones stayed under the carpa´s shade to draw microphones, cartoon celebrities and journalists interviewing people!
Next week we´ll be reverting back to story telling, a format we worked with in the initial months of the project, with the much-awaited return of Alfonso, known by the kids as Licenciado Vurro (which stands for Professor Donkey…). We expect he will be returning with an entertaining representation of "La maquina de cuando sea grande" by Mercedes Falconi to illustrate the right to choose...
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