Education Ecuador Project #24917

Earthquake Relief for Children in Shelters

A microproject by Fundacion Clara Luna

Project Report | Oct 8, 2018
Cuentos en la Plaza- Bibliotecas Moviles continues

By Paola Martinez | Director

In June, our mobil library went to Ludoteca San Vicente, Tabuchila, Río Muchacho, Pío Montúfar shelter in Bahía de Caráquez.

The attentive children listened to the stories of the books, read non-stop, took the puppet play "El escondite de las ganas” (The hideout of desire) by Jonas Ribiero, an inspiring story about daring to discover our hidden dreams and fight for them. We read animal stories "Hipópotamo peleón" (Big Bully Hippo) by Stuart Trotter and "Hipo no nada" (Hippo does not swim) by Pablo Bernasconi. The craft activity did not wait, the children made their hippos with big mouths, white teeth and crazy eyes.

In July, we visited the communities de Tabuchila, la escuela del milenio en Canoa, Ludoteca Nueva Esperanza en San Vicente, y Coaque, the children read, listened attentively to the pair of "Monstruo Rosa” (Pink monster) and "Pájaro Amarillo” (Yellow bird) by Olga de Dios, two stories about diversity and the value of sharing, inviting us to take care of the planet and to liberate our idea for the common good. The children made their own yellow birds and returned to home happy.

n August, we had the honor to coordinate work with Libraries without borders, we inaugurated a new mobile library, the children of Coaque now have their own space to fill up with stories, we made the presentation with the triology by Oliver Jeffers with "Perdido y encontrado” (Lost and found), "De vuelta a casa” (The way back to home) and "Cómo alcanzar una estrella" (How to Catch a Star), in the craft activity, each child drew and painted his own penguin, in 10 steps, following the instructions of Oliver Jeffers himself.

We want to highlight the importance of volunteer work in the communities we visit, stung by the critter reader, we are happy that they remain motivated and spread the seeds, we have observed that some communities are germinating and giving the fruits of Love for reading..

It's so thrilling to be keep counting and adding !

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Apr 5, 2017
Mobile Libraries in affected areas

By Devin Olmack | Volunteer Leader

Community of Chone

Since the Earthquake last April, Clara Luna has been involved in relief and recovery of the affected areas. We have focused our attention primarily on children, because that is our specialty. For months and months, we worked in shelters providing children's programs to the kids. Many of them were not attending school because their schools had been destroyed. If they were attending school, they had no extracurricular activities outside of school in the shelters. A majority of people were living in shelters until August, today nearly a year after, some people are still in shelters. After many people moved out of the shelter there was still a dire need to provide childrens programs in the area since many of these programs no longer existed.

Clara Luna developed a way to continue providing children's programs in the affected areas with its mobile libraries. Throughout our work in the shelters, we were able to identify key community members who would be able to lead the mobile libraries. Because there is no physical space to work, working with key community leaders was essential. These people would then be responsible for holding children's activities and free reading time for the kids in their community, while Clara Luna could not be present. For example, this person would bring books and materials to the park every Tuesday at 4pm to work with a group of children.

In February, we had all the details finalized of the project and held a two day training for the community members who would be in charge of our mobile libraries or what we call "Cuentos en la Plaza". Members from six communities of the affected areas from the earthquake participated in the workshop where they learned better techniques to work with children, how children cope with trauma (the earthquake), why reading and art is important for children, the how to's of "cuentos en la plaza", and how to evaluate the project and it's success. At the completion of the training each community member received a donation from Clara Luna of 106 books and some materials for the crafts. Now, these leaders are working in their communities weekly with the children affected by the earthquake.

We would not have been able to find these community leaders, do this training, or give these donations to deserving communities if it wasn't for your support. Thank you for believing in Clara Luna and it's mission to provide children's programs to them most deserving of children in Ecuador.

Tabuchilla working with their group of kids!

Getting books to the kids in whatever way possible

Arts and Crafts!

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