Helping Families Break Cycles of Violence

Imagine this: You’re sweating. It is 95 degrees, heavy sun, and you’re with 20 people in a small concrete space built for eight. The only reprieve is a brief yet heavy rain that only ends up adding to the humidity within your community.

These are the conditions which Fundación Junto con los Niños (JUCONI) braves each week for its four separate art clubs. The elements may be unfavorable, but JUCONI´s art club is nothing short of impressive. Club de Arte, led by volunteers from the British charity Charlotte Miller Art Project, have worked with the communities that JUCONI serves for the last 10 years, with over 120 adolescents and parents participating in the program throughout the last four months. Club de Arte serves as a supplemental activity for the communities, in addition to the personalized therapy each family receives in their homes with a JUCONI psychologist.

Volunteers of Club de Arte typically utilize painting, crafts, and drawing tools that aid reflection for the children JUCONI serves. Thanks to your continued support, Club de Arte recently completed its first dance exhibition to complement the presentation of artwork within the communities. The club hired two local choreographers to teach dance to the children in order to foster therapeutic methods of self-expression. Each community participated in multiple rehearsals, created costumes, and choreographed their own personalized dance that was then performed in front of each community. The dance was a welcomed change to the activities that kids were accustomed to, as they were able to use some of their energy and their impressive dance moves! Thanks to your generosity, participants became stars in the sectors while community members were able to learn more about the importance of art club. Club de Arte then concluded the exhibition in the center of Guayaquil at the Nahim Isaías Museum to reach an even wider audience with a seven day public exhibition that showed all of the fantastic work done in 2015.

Our team at JUCONI was so happy to celebrate the work of our communities in such a new and creative way. Take pride in the fact that you too made an impact with your incredible generosity. JUCONI is looking ahead to new projects that will inspire the community members where we work, but currently, we could not be more grateful for how through your support, lives have been transformed in our communities with the help of dance, art, and self-expression.

Thank you again for your support.

Sincerely,

Joseph Amiri