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Related to country: Ecuador

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What are the goals of this project?

The streetchildren issue

The problematic nature of there being street children Over 5000 children live and work in the streets of Quito, the capital of Ecuador. The goal of this project is to give some of these children a retreat from their daily lives and to strengthen their self-esteem. We want to offer help by showing the children their own creativity in an area of unspoiled nature, which living in the city, they have never known. Our team of artists, and students, from the Academy of Fine Arts Hamburg (HfBK), the University of Hamburg, and the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de Valencia, want to bring together our different individual backgrounds in an effort to give these children a positive experience.

Through working with the organization Proyecto educativo chicos de la calle*, which has been active since the 70s, we will get to know a group of 25 street children. This project will take place in the region of Nanegalito in the Ecuadorian cloud forest. There, we will carry out the artistic workshops with the children. They will be able to express themselves through different mediums of art (painting, photography, film). The contact with nature and the sharpening of their perception throughout this experience will help the children to forget their daily lives and to discover and use their creativity. During this learning process, what we want to innate and encourage is that of experiencing and discovering, of reflecting and valuing themselves as well as their environment. One of the goals of these workshops is that all participants- the children as well as ourselves- get the chance to discover and to learn something about each other and themselves. *this project of the catholic salesian order has various institutions in seven Ecuadorian cities. They provide help for children who work and live in the streets. The main goal is to give the children human warmth and support as well as the possibility of a school and professional education.

Providing a base for further projects

With this project, we want to create something sustainable. Through the wonderful opportunity to freely use and work on a Finca in the Ecuadorian cloud forest (one of the world’s most endangered ecological systems with the largest diversity of species per km²), we were able – thanks to private donation – to carry out our first workshop and to renovate a room ideal for our needs. This room will be used, along with the local people, according to ecological aspects. It will be a working place (workshops, atelier…), with a room for meetings, which can also be used as a guest room. Furthermore we would like to create, together with a Swiss engineer who knows the place, a sewage system which is safe to the environment. We also want to build a small water-driven power station to provide electricity. The renovated cabin will continue to serve as a place for workshops with children, as well as a home for future projects.



Realization of the project

The determination of every member of the bambuProjekt to get involved is the result of everyone's enthusiasm and willingness to change things. The largest part of the team already know the country and people and have experience which will benefit the project. Lorena is from Quito and familiar with the cloud forest region. Jonas has lived in Ecuador and worked with our partner organization in Quito. Anna worked with youth organizations in Mexico. Niklas travels every year to Ecuador and could already realize various exhibitions. Rene went to Ecuador this summer for the first time and carried out the workshops together with Niklas. Tim already stayed various times in Ecuador, the last time during an eight month-study trip within the scope of the expedition-Welt.de We are absolutely convinced of our idea and we will put all our strength into this project. Help and support, even with unexpected problems, are guaranteed through our friends and families in Ecuador. With over 5000 children living in the streets of Quito, 25 of them could be seen as nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But it is a beginning, a model project, a realizable project which later can be extended. The important thing is to get started, to try to make a difference even when the beginning is small. It’s about starting an idea, turning this idea into reality, advertising this idea, making it public and creating a snowball-effect.



How was the idea of the project born?

Lorena is from Quito and familiar with the everyday scenes of the 2 million capital of Ecuador. The children beg at every traffic light for some centavos and sell roses even before dawn, with temperatures around 6 degrees in the Andean city. Because of visiting her father's finca during weekends, she is also aware of the threats of extinction for the forest's flora and fauna posed by illegal hunting, deforestation and the Petroleros' oil pipelines. Interested in these topics she met like-minded people who are experienced in nature conservation and youth work. Inspired by these many encounters with dedicated people and at the same time fascinated by the forest's flora and fauna she initiated our project:

A project which helps to solve social concerns by using the given possibilities. Art-students from Germany and Spain will develop strategies to utilize the environment (e.g. the subtropical cloud forest) with the children in a free and creative way. The result of the collaboration between the children of Quito and the committed European students will be presented to the public through an exposition. We want our artistic approach to be understood initially as a way of describing, with suitable methods, the complex problems faced by the street children. Secondly, the artistic result is meant to point out a social problem, and help reflect it, without having to state a solution.

Conclusion: We want to draw the attention of the public to the above addressed problems.


December 18, 2007 | 10:59 PM Comments  0 comments

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