Creating a haven for kids through football and art

Carnival and Colombia is one thing which you can't seperate from each other. Drums, rythms, dancing groups, folk music and brightful costumes which enlighten once a year not only the streets of the capital of carinval Barranquillla, but as well the streets of the so called "Perl of America" Santa Marta. And of course the kids of Tiempo de Jugeo Santa Marta could't miss this traditional and important event. 

Every year the carnival street parade is organised by the carinval organisation of the samarian neighborhood called Pescaíto "FUNCARPES" which is supported by the Culutre Ministry through its project "National Program for Culture preservation", the government of the state Magdalena, the municipality and some private companies of Santa Marta.

Thanks to all the hard training of the dance teacher Heiller "Don" Ruiz and its Monitors in the last months, the talented kids of the neighborhood La Lucha and nonetheless our sponsor CARING FOR COLOMBIA who always believes in our work and YOUR donations it was possible only to participate the first time at the carnival Santa Marta. 
The whole team of Tiempo de Juego Santa Marta spent a lot of time and passion to prepare the four hours walk within the parade through the colourful streets of Santa Marta.

The kids learned how important it is to support each other in a group, to be pacience with each other and to work hard for their goals and dreams. Especially the older "Monitors", kids who are participating in the own TDJ Leadership school, took care of the younger kids and showed them how behave and act at this special event. Based on the motto "Time and space for Joy" the carnival parade started on a sunny afternoon on the 2nd of march 2019 with 50 groups which danced, sung in the streets and presentated their hand made beautiful costumes to the around 3.000 samarian people along the streets. In the middle of all the colourful and cheerful parade appeared as well the group of Tiempo de Juego Santa Marta with its own dancing "Afro Style" group TDJ DANCE. TDJ with its powerful 35 dancers were accompanied by 20 supportive parents and friends and by a disguised truck which was equipped with a lot of drinking water for the whole team and music of course.

All the hard work has been really worth it as the carinval comission announced in the end that the kids from TDJ DANCE won the third place of all 50 participating groups. Everybody was so proud and happy.
Hopefully we can take part at the next carnival parade in 2020!

Links:

• Press Article Carinval Santa Marta 2019