Happy at the end of my first week in Guayaquil :-)

So a year since my original interview, and after a random stop-off in Miami, I've finally made it to Ecuador and my new home in the coastal town of Guayaquil - brilliant!  And what a lovely welcome: my new boss Merli Lopez and her family picked me up at the airport and when they dropped me off to my room the bed was made up and a stock of goodies left on the desk including cereal, milk, juice and loo-paper.  Merli also kindly invited me to her house on the Saturday night where I met a lot of my now-colleagues at the goodbye party of volunteer Poen in the most light-hearted of ways - drinking, dancing, playing billiards and even singing karaoke!

Domestic violence does not stay at home.  It invades the streets, schools, businesses… it affects all of us. JUCONI booklet (left) and (right) work produced by the kids attending CLUB de ARTE in 2013 with Jonny and Tracey, showing images of their communities on the Guayaquil estuaries in the north and south of the city.

I also finally met my work-partner for the year, a lovely lad from Leeds, Jonny, who I'll be working alongside as arts educators with the Charlotte Miller Art Project (CMAP) here in Guayaquil.  CMAP support disadvantaged children and young people in the UK, Brazil and here in Ecuador, and in working with them we will be tailoring our art workshops to coincide with their objective: to help the children who participate in their personal and social development by providing creative opportunities for them to explore, express and enjoy themselves.  Jonny has been volunteering here with CMAP since February last year, so has been brilliant in showing me the CMAP ropes in our 'Club de Arte' office - thanks Jonny! The work he and previous partner Tracey facilitated with the kids can be seen on the CMAP blog here.

As part of CMAP Jonny and I will working in partnership with local NGO Junto Con Los Niños (JUCONI), facilitation art workshops for children from disadvantaged neighbourhoods of Guayaquil.  JUCONI work with street-working and at-risk children and their families with a long-term holistic model of therapeutic intervention which I have been fascinated to learn more about this week through my induction sessions and a staff training day today.  A lot of the JUCONI methodology reminds me of the approach implemented by Kids Company and their Family Model in London, which excites me because I feel like I will learn a lot here and build on all that I learned on the Kids Co PDC in Therapeutic Communication.   

The logistical part of my placement has been organised with impressive attention-to-detail by CMAP’s partner-charity back home,  the UK branch of The Inter-Cultural Youth Exchange (ICYE-UK).  I reached my fundraising target of £4,500 for ICYE-UK back in August last year with the amazing help and support of all you family and friends - thank you so very much!  I am keeping my Justgiving fundraising page open here because any funds raised from this point on will come directly through CMAP to Jonny and I to use for extra materials and equipment for Club de Arte.  We have a monthly budget of $US100 for basic materials like paint, paper, brushes etc, but would like to be able to potentially buy extra supplies like blank t-shirts, a sewing machine and print photo-booklets.  So if you would like to support our work with the JUCONI kids any donation would be hugely appreciated and we will keep you updated on what we use it for here and on the CMAP blog.

Sending a happy and excited big love from my new home 

here in the intensely sunny, rainy and humid Guayaquil (a city much greener than the concrete-jungle I imagined because of the heavy rains typical of Ecuadorian 'winter') 

:-)

An unexpected morning in Miami!

Heading back out to South America last week a delayed landing at Miami airport left me stranded after missing my connecting flight to Guayaquil, Ecuador.  The silver-lining to this was an overnight stay in a deluxe hotel courtesy of the airline, food vouchers gigantic bed and all!  (The negative side the sweaty stressing in the airport trying to make the connection and then again later when I couldn't get through to JUCONI staff to warn them not to try picking me up at the Guayaquil airport.)

My two traveling companions this time: Lily's now well-travelled buddy Moley and his new side-kick, Amelie's Bruno-the-Bear. Thanks girls for giving me their company  - we'll keep sending through photos for your Moley photo albums, so keep an eye out!

Plus having an unexpected morning in the city gave me the opportunity to wander the art-covered streets of Wynwood in mid-town Miami… here are some of my favourites of the amazing HUGE murals coating the streets of that neighbourhood (because of time I had to choose between visiting the murals or the beach, so having chosen the murals was glad to see the beach in one of the murals - see top of post).

(left) Art is my weapon / 

(right) Education and a good cup is key… (the wall of a Wynwood cafe)

LOVE PEACE RESPECT UNITY EQUALITY FREEDOM

MAKE YOUR OWN WAY

 HOLD ON TIGHT TO YOUR DREAMS

HEEART THIS CITY

Big love (from Guayaquil a week later)

:-)

Happy New Year 2014!

Big huge thanks to all of you back home here in the UK who have made my start to 2014 such a brilliant one!!  :-)

I arrived back into London on the 8th of Jan and now as I write it's the early hours of the morning on the 23rd and I am all set to fly out to Ecuador later today.  It's been a brilliant and beautiful couple of weeks (that have flown by all too fast!) seeing everyone, getting to know my new nephew Tobias, obtaining my visa for Ecuador and hearing more details about my upcoming position in Guayacil from my lovely CMAP supervisor Olivia Sixsmith. 

With about 10 hours left before I fly I am feeling hugely excited about finally heading towards Ecuador, meeting my new colleagues at  JUCONI and getting started working. I'm hoping that I can do as good a job as possible for the kids out there over this coming year.  

Also know I will miss all of you folk here at home hugely - so sending huge hugs and love to you all!

(left) birds and mist in Finsbury Park (right) giant 15ft blue cockerel by Katharina Fritsch on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square - I love London!

Big love from beautiful brilliant London!
:-)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and lots of festive love to all of you 

from here in Cochabamba where we're celebrating with chicha, bonfires, singing and dancing!!  

 

 Big love 

:-)

Celebrating "El Cantave" with AVE

Here is the result of the stop-motion workshops with the educators at AVE, a short animation called 'El Cantave', which communicates the values of AVE as an organisation, through the story of one character who wakes up at dawn lonely and sad, until a bird arrives on the scene, calls to him to follow him and leads him to a group of friends:

Thanks to the whole team for their enthusiasm and energy throughout the weeks of the workshop.  Here they are below with their certificates from the workshop (left to right) Marycel, Rodrigo, Carolina, Ander, Carolina, Cristobal and Mery:

:-)

[metamorphosis] acto 3: AGUA!! 20.12.13

[metamorphosis] acto 3: AGUA!!

Water - my sign and energy - and what a brilliant night

 - a real great balance between lots of drawing and lots of dancing!! :-) 

Performance from Miri Bamba (left - Gontech on the right enjoying the performance!)

DJ's Gontech and Mighty Pirate from San Pedro Musik.

Body Painting MeXist Cartagena.

Live art Olivia Barron and Kim Alexander.

Photography Paulo Andrés Saavedra Rodriguez.

Thanks to Grace Schmitz for these extra photos that have a real under-the-water feel! :-)
:-)

"Celebrando la Familia CAICC": animation screenings

"Celebrating the CAICC Family" cake (multicoloured layers of sponge inside!) and the box full of the project magazines.

And after a whole week of editing... 

finally you can watch the whole CAICC film here, this version includes the kids talking about the projcet and footage of them working, shot by fellow workshop facilitator Florrie Cassell:

Watch this same video with English subtitles here.

Watch the animation without documentary footage in Spanish here 

and with English subtitles here.

We had two screenings of the CAICC films for the kids and their parents last week:

19.12.13 screening at San Pablo Prison in Cillacollyo:  A really (and perhaps surprisingly?!?) cheery morning where loads of tiny kids at the San Pablo prison and some of their parents watched our films in an upstairs room. Then we came down to the small courtyard that was full of all ages of folk, men women and children. Some of the CAICC nursery kids performed a traditional dance then two clowns from Banco Sol did a hilarious and cheeky routine that had the whole crowd laughing, and finally gave out presents to the kids.

20.12.13 screening at the CAICC nursery: A beautifully hectic morning with so SO many kids, from tiny tots up to the older ones and lots of parents plus all the staff.  Everyone had hot chocolate and bread for breakfast and hotdogs and coca-cola for lunch.... and there was a Christmas tree surrounded by piles of gifts - each child got 3 really decent gifts as far as I could see - many donated by anonymous 'godfathers and mothers' who support the organisation.  We screened the films for more of the parents and kids and handed out the project magazine that Florrie's Sustainable Bolivia mini-grant funded, documenting the whole process of the project for them.  

Here are some of them enjoying their magazine's: 

\

[this is the first blog post showing the kids faces, which is because we now have permission for their images to appear online]

Thank you to Teresa for coming along and helping out at both screenings, 

thanks to all the super supportive CAICC staff, 

a big huge thanks to Florrie for all the amazing collaboration,

and most of all a huge HUGE thank you to all of the wonderful kids that we worked with 

and were so inspired and warmed by!

:-)