March 2013 report, Jardín de la Esperanza – Mérida, Venezuela
March 5th 2013 is already a date which is part of History: Venezuela lost its President Hugo Chávez Fría, the revolutionary leader who caused much debate around the world. The whole country entered a deep mourning, even the political parties of the opposition. In no city there were fights reported. The various families lived the mourning differently, depending on their political opinions, but one thing is sure: the president became worshipped like some sort of religious figure. For a whole week every national flag was at half-mast, there were no parties and no drinking in the streets and all activities were suspended. A never ending parade of citizens travelled to Caracas for seven days and seven nights for the last good bye to the Commander. Flor Maria, the oldest girl at the Jardin, stayed for three days in the capital city, and managed to see the President's funeral and she got lost in the crowd, causing much worry to her mom, who thinks she managed to find her with the help of the dead President.When the activities started again in the Jardin there was still a lot of emotion. There were even some small arguments between the girls while sharing stories about how they spent the days of mourning. This situation invites us to think about tolerance, respecting other people's opinions and how to deal with a loss, an experience that unfortunately some of the girls have already had to deal with. On the 18th we organized a day of reflection for the girls and their families. Apart from the full team of the Jardin, we were joined by Soraya Medina, psychotherapeutist from “Geografía Viva”, who organized activities and excercises on family relationships, the girls' life plans and the resolution of conflicts.
Excercise on the topic of emotional bonds.
This time it's the psychologist's and psychopedagogue's birthday.
Mariela, the girl who takes care of the Jardin's logistics organized a game for the children and the adults. We are very happy that she is part of our team because she works with passion and proposes interesting didactical strategies.
Asuncion invited the girls to imagine a trip that they might be doing in the future. The activity is meant to help understand what are the girl's hopes and how they imagine their tomorrow.
In the meantime, Soraya organized another activity with the parents.
With crayons, plastiline and cut-out magazines... The journey begins.
Lilibeth, the intern who worked with us for two weeks, mainly helped Marisela, a girl with a hearing handicap, because she knows the sign-language.
By bus, by car or by plane... Where will these trips take us? Some go to Caracas, some to Maracaibo, some to Los Angeles and... ….
At the end of the day the psychopedagogue read a story. We have been working for a few weeks on the topic of resilience, in particular: self-esteem, being ambitious, how to react when facing difficulties, etc.
Back at the normal Jardin routine, Ines, the librarian, is teaching how to sew dolls. In the beginning the boys were a bit skeptical, but in the end they realized how sewing could turn up as a useful skill.
Carol continues her classes on body expression and theatre, with the aim of reinforcing the children's resilience. Every child is working on representing a happy and sad moment that occurred during their life.
Meeting on project evaluation. With the logical framework in hand we checked the aims and their indicators. We always match the fixed objectives. Our weakness is the family objective. We always try to include and make the families responsible, but it is the biggest difficulty in our daily activities
