One of our newest projects is an early childhood stimulation class. We hold it twice a week and all kids from the local communities, aged between 2 and 5, are welcome to attend.
The project started from talking to the community and the local school about how kids are going at school. It became apparent that there was a great need to provide some pre-school skills to help kids in the area of language, fine and gross motorskills, and generally learning-how-to-learn. The kids are entering school facing many challanges, with Spanish as their second language (Quechua is the first), as well as never being exposed to any form of ‘school culture’ including books, pencils, problem solving, quesitoning etc.
So we began to make a plan and thanks to some great donations and the help of volunteers we have a very cute classroom in a building lent to us by the community. The kids are now busy with puzzles, construction, ball games, painting and plenty more. It has been amazing to watch them develop confidence to try new things, grow persistence with difficult tasks and generally just loving being in that environment. Everyday, they ask if they can come again tomorrow.
In every class we have a range of aunts, big sisters or Mum’s helping out which adds so much to the class. Part of the plan was for the helpers to learn too; to grow confidence in teaching/stimulating their children and adopt the games and activities for the kids to play back at home or while minding the animals.
At the moment the classroom and facilites we have are managable BUT we lack running water, power and bathrooms. To have these facilites would make a huge difference to the quality of education we are providing. With the development of the Yurac Yacu Community Centre we would have access to all this as well as the option to extend this project to incorporate a nutritional aspect, to give those little kids an even bigger boost to their learning.
Written by Joclyn Perry
