By Jose Sicay Mesia | Coordinator of Social Programs
6 months ago, Mano a Mano officially launched the weekend activities with the kids! We have worked very hard to build this tutoring program so that it can be as useful as it is interesting and fun for the participants. We recently evaluated the results of our objectives and looked into the the children’s feedback more closely. Since then, we have adapted our agenda and revised our workshop’s framework.
Our program’s coordinator, José, has incredible artistic talent, which he has been developing as an artisan and painter since a young age. We all agreed that it would be ludicrous not to take advantage of his natural aptitudes for the benefit of the children of Mano a Mano! Therefore, along with the magisterial classes and reading classes, we decided to include thematic art classes to our program. So far, the children are loving it!
We believe that adding art classes to our curriculum brings many benefits to the children and offers a great way to learn differently than at school. Introducing art activities to the kids helps them develop their creativity, makes them practice their problem resolution skills, challenges their patience, encourages determination and dedication, all the while improving their self-confidence.
In our first art workshop, we saw the immense enthusiasm that the kids had for learning and discovering their artistic abilities, and we were very happy to see that the students were both interested and participated energetically in this new area of the program. Our first workshop was introductory, so our topic was “Painting techniques.” Not all the participants have had the opportunity to paint, trace, or draw before. We taught them a few techniques such as drawing and combining shapes to make a landscape so that they can express their imagination, but the best part of this first workshop was discovering that some of the children do have immense artistic ability and would only need some support to develop their talents. It would make us so proud to see a future where a few of the kids become professional painters because painting, along with weaving, is also an important artistic tradition for our pueblo.
We could only use the materials and resources that we already had at our disposition, which ended up being just enough pieces of paper for each student and some colored pencils. Yet, something that struck our attention was that we were able to work with the few materials that were available to us. Unfortunately, our program lacks the resources to create a more robust arts program, but we are convinced that art not only has the capacity to motivate our kids to stay in school but also can help them discover their creative talents. In spite of the challenges, we are dedicated to developing our arts workshops.
We need your help to afford art supplies for all the children! With your donations, we wish to purchase color pencils, paint, brushes, and canvas that can be use over a year-long workshops series.
Please consider donating! <3
By Alicia Dufour, Jose Sicay | Development Team
By Alice Dufour | Assistant Coordinator - Mano a Mano Program
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
