Chao amigos

And finally, this is a very sad post for me...... It's time for me (Gemma) to say goodbye to the weird yet wonderful ways of Ecuador. The hardest thing of course being .......saying goodbye to all the wonderful people, especially the children who I have met here.

I can't explain nearly enough just what an amazing experience I have had. I have learnt so much and now have a wider knowledge about other cultures, myself, children, art, reggueton, and a hell of a lot more Spanish!

Thank you so much to all the JUCONI staff who have been ever so patient and supportive. Thank you to the children for (again) their patience and just for being so brilliant and creative.

Thank you to everyone at The Charlotte Miller Art Project for giving me this amazing opportunity.

Most of all I save the biggest thank you for my partner in crime, Anna, without whom I couldn't have survived. We make a great team, housemates, dance partners and cake eaters! Thank you for your patience Anna and for being a great friend (now don't cry, dry your eye hahaha).

What will I miss:

- Seeing such adorable faces everyday.

- Daddy Yankee and Aventura

- The pushy people on the metrovia (NOT)

What I'm looking forward to on my return

- Cheeeeeeeeese!! Brie, chedder, edam, the whole lot!

- Seeing my lovely family & friends

- Red double deckers.

Chao mis amigos

Cuidanse x

Exhibition, Guayaquil

Woo hoo! We did it! We managed to...

1. Organise an exhibition in a central public building, El Museo Municipal

2. Fill the walls with beautiful, colourful work

3. Get lots of the kids and a few parents to come along to the exhibition opening

4. Deliver our speech in Spanish and be perfectly understood by all (ok, I don't know if this part is true, but I didn't see any confused faces in the crowd so it couldn't have been too bad. Right!)

Everything went better than we had expected and we are very proud of the end result.

A part of me

The second project we ran in Balerio Estacio was called 'A part of me'. The children had to choose a favourite part of their body to paint onto a canvas.

We got them thinking about their body by playing fun games like, simon says, hoky poky and drawing around each other on large pieces of paper.

We ended up with a lot of hands and faces (they have a tendency to copy one another) but there were a few surprises in the mix including a heart, belly and some teeth.

Cajas de mi vida

In Balerio Estacio, we now have a new location and 20 new kids (plus a few of our regulars). This last month the group has been bigger than ever.

'Cajas de mi vida' is similar to the project we ran in Mexico, where the children decorate shoe boxes and fill it with cardboard drawings of different things in their lives.

Because there were so many children we had them working in pairs. JUCONI staff think has been a very interesting way to get the kids exploring what is important in their lives and hope to continue using this project in their therapeutic sessions.

Ninez

We thought it would be a great idea to run a project that got families spending some fun time together, for the children to show their parents what they have learnt in art club and for the parents to learn a bit of art too. For this project we worked with the children in our Nueva Prosperina group, together with their parents and siblings.

The theme was 'Ninez' which means childhood. The plan was for the parents and children to share their experiences of childhood with each other, where they lived, where they worked, what their favourite possesion was.

The first week of this project, we taught the children a range of different techniques including mono printing, collage and painting.

The following week the whole family came along. It was a session with lots of colours, paint, glue, noise and general madness. But we believe it was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

It was great seeing the families working together, a few of the JUCONI eduactors commented on what a good idea it had been.

More Iguanas, Tortugas & little clay people.

After our trip to the park, the children spent the following two sessions making a range of Iguanas and Terrapins out of different recycled materials, a bit of paper mache and a lot of green paint.

They then had a go at recreating the pre-hispanic objects they had seen in the musuem using clay. This had to be a short activity, because of the heat out here the clay drys very quickly. The children enjoyed getting messy and produced a great collection of work.