Creative therapy...

Over the past month or so, we have been busy on various fronts…greeting our kids back, identifying “the new & the old” and their needs, observing how- and that can be pretty breathtaking- some have grown into young ladies, little tough boys or simply, incredibly hugging and affectionate characters. Most importantly, we have been working on keeping Cuentamelo Todo’s space “open” for the kids to elect what it is they feel like doing and get a better idea of what it is we should be developing with them over the next couple of months.

During this “observation” period, it has been great to see how many of them, through the various games we have at hand, are now pals and meet up on the Plaza specifically to pick up where they last left these…On the menu at Cuentamelo Todo: the usual footy, the long & short sogas (surprisingly kids never seem to lose interest!!), the very popular elastico (seems to transcend all age groups and sexes!), the rayuela, etc. On the Mobile School, the Juego de la Oca, orientation games and Quien Es are all popular team games that some kids get incredibly shirty about if they are not posted for a while… Others, well they just storm under the tent and request their piece of paper, crayons, a book to be read, and the issue is over.

A recent innovation on the Mobile School has been a growing interest in using it as a drawing board which is incredibly more ecological than paper…Whilst some are coming up with very artistic drawings such as “Looking after the world”, coined by a little girl after she had drawn the mapa mundi and a big hand holding it; others are using it to pass on messages- as with the fish figure that emerged from one the laminated games- a group of siblings took to describing what the fish may be saying: as you hopefully might be able to see, a pretty thought for the day! Meanwhile, we also discovered we had an artist amongst our team; as soon as our back is turned, Santi is busy beavering away at drawing graffiti, which created quite a stir yesterday amongst some of the kids who also wanted to write their names stylishly but couldn’t quite figure out the letters- obviously an activity to be added to our planning sessions! ;0

On a slightly more serious front, we have also been working with the kids at developing team spirit through manual activities and have put a fair amount of emphasis, in this new schooling year, on the importance of recognizing and addressing the other with respect. Thanks to our wonderful trio, Yvonne, Santi & Henry, we have been developing communication and motricity skills through a series of games where the kids had to call on each other, follow each other around and then identify themselves by their names… A challenging exercise as most call each other, as well as the team, by the very popular “oye” … which could translate as “hey you” (over there)…;0

This month, we also welcomed Leonor Bravo, despite the rainy day, a local writer who came to tell the story “La Granja de las Hormigas”, which counted the story of 2 cousins from distinct areas of Ecuador and the various knowledge of their country they respectively had. Beyond values of tolerance and sharing, the tale spoke of insects & animals as well as respect for nature, which we then brought to the artistic field by recreating aspects of the cuento through group drawings of images of animals & insects.

A wonderful purchase we recently made was a record player which has come in very handy in a few sessions where music was at the heart of our activities. Over the past few weeks, Yvonne, a fervent believer in musical therapy, has exposed the kids, through movement and play, to some great melodies such as La Sinfonia Inconclusa del Mar by Piero, or Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. Bernarda, from the Coro de Fe y Alegria, also made it for a visit despite her terrible cold and injured knee and thanks to our new technological aquisition, the kids learned to identify what instruments made which sounds…Through these various musical activities, we are discovering the kids love to play & listen to music as well as respond increasingly well with their bodies!

Last week we also had the incongruous visit of local firemen who had been given authorization by the local authorities to set up tent at close vicinity on the Plaza … It made complete sense to = join forces and our kids were the first to sit down in the middle of the Plaza and call for a rather busy audience! As you can see, a large group concentrated to watch and laugh with the firemen dressed up as all sorts as they sensitized children and their families on how to take care with fire and, most importantly, on how to prevent it.

Brief monthly update:
1."The Mobile School injury": we discovered one day with the kids it lost one of its metal boards, which caused great distress amongst them as that meant we would not be able to take it out …we thankfully managed to repair it swiftly!
2."The tormenting rainy season": despite having access to the Convent, the dark clouds are back & looming over us most afternoons now which means our usual crowd may be less present as their parents cannot sell off the streets…
3. "Cuentamelo Todo’s session planning in progress": with Henry and Santi, and the support of our teacher specialists, we will shortly be unraveling this planning for the next couple of months, where we will be challenging our kids with some more key life values and expecting them to challenge us back!
4. "Reaching out for teachers and partners": we are proceeding with our teacher search for the project and working on developing new partnerships to welcome all types of specialists over our sessions, growing & strengthening our network!
5. “Cuentamelo Todo in numbers”: Cuentamelo Todo has come into contact with over 4259 participants since we started in June 2009, which breaks down to just over 1735 different kids, with an average attendance per session of 32 for a total 136 sessions. Since October 2009, more than 310 books have also been loaned...