Empower Children through Literacy and Education

The end of May was a busy, joyful and colorful month that welcomed an art Festival called Festi’artes (2^nd edition – focused on the connection with the Pachamama). It was organized by the collective Alegrate Puerto Lopez and more than 165 artists attended to this event. The Children from Clara Luna and the community were both, actors and participants to the event. On the first day for the parade, children walked dressed as their favorite book character and they showed banners to share their love of reading.

Then, in the Pabellon infantil, (https://youtu.be/RjZKRiRHY9w) they could enjoy activities about reading and different workshops such as one with Santiago Gonzalez, who is a famous Ecuadorian illustrator that presented one of his characters called « Luciano el Gusano ».

With the teenager groups, we also started a library activity. The idea is to lend the long-term reading books we have and this group of about 8 youths from 12 to 15 will be in charge of running this concept. For now, we registered the books we have, created a membership card and we are thinking of the different rules. Implementing our programs inside the community is something very important for us.

We keep on going to the school of Rio Blanco, a small community 20 minutes far from Clara Luna. This month we focused on whales and see life as the « Humpback Whales season » started in Puerto Lopez. Indeed, they chose this place to give birth and from June to September you can see them jumping majestically not far from the beach. We worked on the book, « More, More, more » from dawn Casey, and the kids draw their own whale, working with different textures (crayons, painting…) and different types of blue. It is amazing how you can see 20 different drawings with cute differences, even though all the drawings were inspired by the same book. Children’s imagination is limitless!