David in Pisco – update 2

Over the last few days we have been working with an NGO called Sumbi to launch in the school a new programme for the children calles ANIA.

The idea is to promote outside of school imagination, creativity and individul pride of ownership. There is also a strong link to the environment as well. According to my spanish anyway.

The programme has been a great success in many diiferent schools and communities all over south America. The idea is for the children in their own schools and homes to create their very own garden patches. These are to be their own spaces which they create from scratch and nurture over the years.

We have been working with the children over the last few days to inspire them to really get behind this project. There are lots of online, CD and reading material to support them along with all the neccesary tools in soil bags and plant seeds. The proramme is further supported with motivational and recognition programmes. The children get a photo of their garden patch published in the local newspaper once finished.

The children have now been introduced to the childrens charachter Ania and in small groups we have been facilitating them to draw and map out their new gardens. Its is great to be at the start of this as having seen before and after pictures from other schools the results can be truly inspiring. From the smallest playground to the humblest of backgardens it is remarkable what can be achieved. Over the next week we are all looking forward to getting are hands dirty in the school garden I am sure it will be lots of fun. You can follow my progress on twitter at

On saturday the school held a kite festival. All the children and their parents were invited and there was a great turnout. Everybody joined in to help the children build their new kites. They were every concievable size, shape and colour. The children really let their imagination go wild. As you can imagine the girls all wanted pink paper for their kites and the boys wanted red. Somethings are universal all over the world. I had the precarious task of cutting the bamboo for the kite frames. The boys really got a kick out of showing me how to do it which put a great twist on things. By the end of the morning there was glue, paper and bamboo everywhere but the children were delighted with their new creations. There were prizes for the best kite which was won by a boy who had built a fantastic kite with all the different flags of the volunteers represented on his kite.

The best part of the whole day was being invited by a small group of boys to leave the school to head out to the hills nearby to test the kites properly. I really felt accepted by them and it was great fun to see a different part of Picso. We flew the kites for the rest of the day which was a real blast.

You can follow my progrees on the rest of my time in Pisco at http://twitter.com/DaveyWhelan

Hasta Pronto,
David

Our Pronino volunteers are blogging from Latin
America. To find out more about Proniño, head to
http://dnc.o2.co.uk/home/Pronino.To see pictures taken by the team, head to Flickr.