Art Club 1.05: Welcome to the new groups

THEME OF WEEK 1:05: Welcome to our new Art Club members

18th and 23rd February 2015

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

facilitated by the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  To welcome the children from the new registers to Art Club through the simple and fun task of decorating a bunting triangle with their name, age and something they like, with the aim of introducing all the children to one another and the facilitators.  By joining all the triangles into a length of bunting at the end, to symbolise the formation of the unifies group with a piece that can be included in the carnival cart. 

PROCESS: 

1. Facilitators pre-cut large triangles from card and make their own examples. 

2. Children use felt and colourful and patterned papers to create first a base colour or pattern on both sides of their bunting flag.  Draw their name and age out in large sized letters on felt and cut the letters and numbres out one-by-one.  Think of a way to represent something that they like, and edge the flag in colourful tape if desired.

3. Facilitators string all of the triangles together into one length of bunting using colourful wool.

MATERIALS:  Card pre-cut to triangles, felt in various bright colours, scissors, glue, a mixture of colourful and patterned papers, colourful tapes, pens, wool and an awl (to poke holes).

MEET THE THREE  NEW GROUPS OF 7 - 11 YEAR OLDS: 

(there is also one new group of 11-17 year olds due to start in Socio Vivienda, 

keep an eye out for the next Art Club post)

Things that the kids said they liked: football, flowers, friends, food, their doll, the world, and cakes!

SERGIO TORAL

We've now moved the afternoon to the morning, with a 10 am - 12 noon session every Wednesday.

  

SOCIO VIVIENDA 2

We've moved to the new space of CNH on Mondays, for one morning session 10 am - 12 noon...

…. and an afternoon session 2 pm - 4 pm: 

This change over of groups from the old ones to the new was a change that was sprung on Emily and I all of a sudden when we came back to JUCONI after the Christmas break.  Expecting to open up with our old groups and continue until the end of the project in the summer, we were disappointed at first to be asked to shut down with those children.  The reason given was because, due to oil prices falling, Ecuador is experiencing severe cuts across government and public services and so MIES funding to JUCONI is being restricted.  These funds usually cover the food and drink we give our kids at the end of the sessions, so we were asked to restrict our groups to only those children attended individually by the team of JUCONI orientadors.  

Although we were at first upset about how abrupt the change was for our old children, we do see the value in aiming our workshops specifically at the JUCONI children, as these are the children who have been identified as most in need of attention.  Although there were some negative behaviours amongst the old children as a result of the sudden end, we tried to focus on the positive of them being graduates, and reminded them that they will be included in the carnival cart exhibition in April. 

The carnival cart itself is starting to come together.  Emily and I did some mounting of the children's work back in the JUCONI office courtyard one (very sunny) day this week:     

For more details about this change over of groups, and for an overview of the project from January until now, take a look at the latest post on our official cmap blog. 

 Even the baby chicks in Sergio Toral are in colourful carnival mode…

…apparently they are dyed these bright colours before being sold, 

for $0.25 cents so the children tell us.

Carnival in Naranjal :-)

Carnival weekend came early this year to Ecuador this weekend just gone, giving us all Monday and tuesday off work. These days of joyful excess (carne = meat, and folk talk of carnival as an indulgence in food and flesh) lead up to Ash Wednesday and the start of lent across the whole of South America.  Having had such a great time with Ty's cousins and their mates in Naranjal last weekend, Emily, Ty and I decided to head back there for the carnival celebrations and had a brilliant weekend! :-)

Saturday's parade of dancers and floats marked the beginning of the beer drinking, 'carioca' foam spraying, water drenching and salsa dancing.

Emily and I were looking to the floats for tips for our JUCONI-cmap carnival cart idea that we're working on with our Art Club kids and were glad to see recurring themes in the carts that we've already included: palm trees, parrots, recycled materials, masks, flowers etc.

'Carioca' foam spray is a key part of carnival celebrations across the whole of Ecuador.  Last year we played with this with Jonny and Becky in the mountains in Ambato, and the added element this year on the coast was getting soaked with water and coated in dust paint.  We rekon on Sunday we must have been soaked in water, foam and paint whilst drinking shots of Pilsner light in rounds for about 9 hours straight at Maria José's, Tyrone's cousin Adrian's girlfriend's house!  

Naranjal is know here as "la Tierra Encantada", "The Enchanted Land" and Tyrone's extended family that live here, sisters, aunties, children and grandchildren all along one street, say that once you have bathed in the hot springs of Naranjal you will always come back.  We're not sure if it was the springs or the good company, but something definitely worked because Emily and I were back within the week to come for carnival, after having spent our first weekend visiting the hot springs and drinking and dancing the nights away with Ty's cousins.

 Bathing in the hot and cold baths that they say bring you back to Naranjal (above) and Emily teaching Ty's cousin Julio Cesar's oldest boy Geovanni, how to use her camera by the Inca Trail on the way back to the house (below).

Cacao drying out infront of the house opposite.  This region cultivates a lot of cacao and many folk, including Ty's Tío Julio, sell it for export. 

Beautiful sunset across Naranjal from Ty's cousins' house.

Thanks to Ty and his cousin Adrian and friends and Tía Magdalena and Tío Julio for such an overwhelming amount of hospitality.

:-)

p.s. a few shots from the Ingapirca ruins from our stop-off on a brief visit to Cuenca on Monday , brought to an abrupt end by some dodgy stomach reaction that had us dashing back to Guayaquil on Tuesday. 

Hot 'canelazo' shots made from cane liquor before a loop walk after being guided round the main site.  Fruit punch (but not alcoholic) 'chicha' after it - is this maybe the point that the stomach's got dodgy?!)

Art Club 1.04: Goodbye Graduates

THEME OF WEEK 1:04: Goodbye Art Club Graduates

11th and 12th February 2015

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

facilitated by the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  To have a fun final session with the children where they make puppets representing themselves and respond to two questions designed to invite them to reflect on the positive things they have learned in Art Club and the positive things about themselves:

1. What have you learnt in Art Club?

2. What makes you special and unique?

PROCESS: 

1. Puppet: Roll up a ball of plasticine and mould it onto the short end of a wooden clothes peg.  Add details of eyes, nose and mouth by sculpting the plasticine and adding other colours.  Add hair with wool or curled ribbon. Cover the clothes peg with a scrap of cloth.  Wool can be woven around the legs if desired.  Twist a pipe cleaner around the body for arms, winding wool around them if desired. 

2. Label: Stick a coloured post-it note to each side of a cardboard ticket.  Write the answers to the two questions above, one on each side.  Tie to the puppet's wrist with wool.

MATERIALS: wooden clothes pegs, plasticine, wool, ribbon, pipe cleaners, cloth scraps, carboard labels, post-it notes, glue, scissors, silicone, felt pens

MEET THE PUPPETS FROM NUEVA PROSPERINA:

22 puppet friends from our final session with our Nueva Prosperina children.  Because JUCONI works individaully with only very few children in this area now that this group has closed down we will no longer be working in Nueva Prosperina.  We'll be opening a third group in Socio Vivienda instead where there is far more demand for JUCONI's services.

(left) "I am unique and special in sharing with people and offering help" (right) "What did you learn in Art CLub?  What I most like is to draw and to paint"

(left) "I learned in Art Club that sharing is the best and I made new friends" (right) "What did I learn in Art CLub?  In Art Club I learned to draw and to paint and to draw with plasticine"

(left) "I learned to share with others" (right) "In Art CLub I learned to play and to paint and the last, to draw"


          "I am unique and special because I have a special imagination."

                                  MEET THE PUPPETS FROM SERGIO TORAL:

"In Art Club I learned to lots of things in groups"

(left) "I special because I like to help my friends and to be friendly" (middle) "I am special because I help my friends" (right) "In Art Club I learned to help my friends"

(left) "In Art Club I learned many things, like drawing and much more" (right) "I learned to draw and to cut out.  Thank you."

"I am special because I am an artist.  I feel happy in Art Club"

As this session was our last in each of our groups the priority was for the kids to have a positive and happy experience.   In Socio Vivienda, before making their plants and answering the questions, this meant playing with the kid's favourite, the parachute: 

In Sergio Toral we had a spontaneous story-telling session instigated by the kids when they asked us about "duendes" (goblins or elves) and if we had ever seen any, then told us their stories.  As Emily said afterwards, the nicest thing about this was seeing the child in some of our older kids who can be pretty tough and 'adult' at times. 

Having observed in Socio Vivienda and amongst ourselves as facilitators that it is pretty tough to think of a reason why you oneself are 'special and unique' Emily, Ronald and I took the time to write down a reason why each of our children in the Sergio Toral group are special.   After the storytelling we read these out for the children and it was a really lovely moment, where Ronald revelaed an amazing comic ability that had the kids and Emily and I shaking with laughter.  Time didn't allow for a repeat of the same in the group in Nueva, but we were able to voice our observations individaully with the children throughout the session.  Just as it was lovely for us as facilitators to hear what the others had to say about why we were unique and special, (Emily to me: I'm stronger than a bus, Ronald to me: I care hugely about everyone around me and consistently give the most of myself to them, and live searching for my freedom, me to Emily: she learned a language in 3 weeks and works magic with paint, me to Ronald: he has an amazing abillity to animate and motivate those around him, Ronald to Emily: a being with an urge to live) we hoped that it would be a moment of positive reinforcement for the children to hear what we had to say about them, and it certainly seemed to provoke a lot of pensative and pleased agreement through the various sessions. 

Our facilitaor's examples a little te worse-for-wear after being played with in 2 sessions of Art Club.  (left - me, with a squashed nose and missing feet) "I'm unique and special because I care about others and give a lot of myself" (far right - Emily, squashed face, feet back to front) "I am unique and special because I make magic with colourful paint.  I am a being with the urge to live"  (Centre - Ronald, ticket missing, so this is a rough quote) "In Art Club I learned to observe the awakening of the creativity of the children who come to these workshops, that come out of the imaginations of these cmap volunteers that come from so far away to work with JUCONI and these children." 

We also finished in all 4 groups by handing out goody bags of sweets and biscuits along with an invitation to the JUCONI-cmap carnival exhibition in April.  Although it has been an unwanted and abrupt end to these 4 groups that we have shared so much time with, these were fun last sessions and we're glad to be able to look forward to seeing the children again in April.  

Art Club 1.03: Plants and flowers

THEME OF WEEK 1:03: Plants and Flowers

4th, 5th and 9th February 2015

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

facilitated by the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  For the children to have fun working on some large scale collaborative pieces for their carnival cart. 

PROCESS: These workshops were realised in a number of different ways in the 4 different groups that we work with here in Guayaquil, to create a palm tree trunk and palm fronds plus lots of individual flowers.

1. Palm tree trunk: Facilitators pre-prepare a chicken-wire base for the trunk.  Children use modrock to create a solid layer around the wire that can later be decorated with fabric scraps. (This tree trunk caused a lot of issues, in large part because of damage during transport.  At the time of writing, having been through the hands of children in 3 sessions it is now in 2 halves and a-waiting some tlc in the office to be finished off!  Note to self for future workshops: create a strong skeleton inside the chickenwire and add a firm modrock base layer to make the structure more solid before the children being working on the sculpture.) 

2.  Palm fronds: In groups of 2 to 4 the children cover both sides of large pre-cut cardboard triangles with scraps of Fomix in various shades and textures of greens (or other colours if desired), and add further leaves that hang off the main branch.

3. Flowers: Individually the children take a cup cut from an egg box, place a stem through the centre using a pipecleaner and decorate it with felt and Fomix petals and a tissue paper centre.

MATERIALS: Tree trunk: chicken wire, wire cutters, thin wire, modrock, water and water bowls, scissors, string, fabric scraps and glue; Palm fronds: Fomix in multiple shades and textures of green, other colours of Fomix, green papers, glue, silicone, scissors, cardboard; Flowers: egg boxes, scissors, pipe cleaners, felt, silicone, glue, tissue paper.

The day that we ran this plant-making session in Socio Vivienda was also our last sessions with these children before the upcoming change to our groups, so the focus of the workshop shifted to be a celebration of their time with cmap and JUCONI in Art Club.  

In order to incorporate this with the plant-making we asked the children to answer two questions:

1. What have you learnt in Art Club?

2. What makes you special and unique?

The children decorated cardboard squares with their answers.  The intention here was that, even though the ending for these groups has come more abruptly than Emily, Ronald or I would like as facilitators, that the children would finish on a positive note, reflecting on what they will take with them from the groups and what makes them each a special and talented person. 

MATERIALS: cardboard squares, post-it notes in various colours, Fomix in various colours and textures, glue and scissors.

The plan is for the results to be hung from the palm trees once they are put together on the carnival cart.

Here is a sneak peak at some of the answers the children gave:

(above left) "I am unique and special because I am good at playing football, not fighting, not using bad words, painting and drawing" (right)  "In Art Club I learned to make drawings and paint with lots of colours!"

The kids answers to what they learned include: to draw and paint, to play, to make friends, to do lots of crafts, to make "Años Viejos", to be sociable, to share and answers to what makes them special and unique include: because I have learnt many things, because I am a good brother and do the chores in the house to help my mum, because I am a good friend, because I am good at dancing, because I am good at playing football.

Great answers!