Dear BaToCo Friends: Here you'll find something I wrote about the activities we carried out in Bariloche, and some recent photos with kites. I also take the opportunity to congratulate you for your plentiful achievements and projects in the late months, after so much dedication and effort. Above all, I wish to thank you for all the support and strength you give me each time I travel to Buenos Aires. It started building kites in '99. How many things have occurred since then! Below you can read about an experience we carried out here, in the South...
Kites at Grupo Encuentro
Since 2000, I've been delivering kite workshops at Grupo Encuentro, a civil association dedicated to children and young people who live in the streets or are at risk. I'll tell you how this works today
I'm working with a group of fifteen children who are between 7 and 14 years old, in the afternoon shift. As we work twice a week during several months of the year, except in winter, we are able try kite models that demand some effort in building them, as well as time for the decoration. Some children have been attending the workshop for three or four years now, so they have accumulated a good deal of experience. They have built sleds, deltas, rhombus, diamonds, squares, hexagons, octagons, stars, fish, snakes, octopuses, boxes, boxes with wings, ships…, and an eddys arc that currently has some forty kites. We also build "wind games": mills, messengers, parachutes, wind sleeves and mobiles, just to mention some.
I would like to share with you some things that have been improved since we started seven years ago, as well as difficulties and obstacles that still appear. Within a context of poverty -with all that it implies-, children's attendance perseverance at the workshop has much improved, thus allowing us to strengthen our relationship with them and to bring the works to a close.
Certainly, many factors had to be put together for this to happen, but offering kites is an excellent way of arousing enthusiasm, motivation and willingness to do things. Another positive aspect is the gradual improvement in manual skills and the correct use of tools and fittings. Children can now perform alone the tasks that they considered complicated before, especially placing the bridles and the frame in geometrical shapes. They manage themselves with confidence and independence, and if they make a mistake, in general, they can be patient and do again their works or else, correct it. This aspect, related to tolerance when making a mistake, is not easy (for anybody!), and there are children who -at the beginning- get very angry and destroy their production because they believe it is badly done or "ugly", or else they leave it half made. Little by little, the possibility of arranging, improving, trying again, is incorporated...
Through painting and drawing works, it has been stimulated the artistic creativity, reflecting it afterwards in the kite decoration. Occasionally, kites are made in pairs or groups, favoring teamwork, and some of the older children, who work faster, help the new or younger ones. Today, I can count on their worthy aid, together with that provided by two young teachers from Grupo Encuentro, who works as helpers. As it is well known by those who deliver workshops, there are so many details to bear in mind that very often you get short of hands.
With the purpose of making the class more motivating, and creating an atmosphere of concentration, I use to begin the workshop telling a story, if possible, related to the kite model we're going to build, or linked to the wind, ecology and nature issues. For example, before building ships, we read about Caleuche, a legendary ghost ship from Chiloé island. The legends on The Morning Star and The Seven Sisters (The Pleaides), from North American Indian towns were the first step for making stars. Other short stories used were The Lady and The Giant, an Eskimo legend about the origin of winds, and Lucía Centeno (Earth Divinity), a beautiful Mexican story about the environmental care, which served as trigger for building a fish-shaped Eastern kite.
At the back of Grupo Encuentro facilities, there is our flight open place. In the past, there was a shantytown over there, called La Lomita, with very precarious huts, without any type of basic or sanitary services. Those people have been recently relocated by the Municipality in other neighborhoods; the houses were dismantled and now there is an ample and free space, partially leveled for a football field, where we can fly safely. It is wonderful to have such a space so close to our site.
The workshop has been economically sustained with some subsidies (Fundación Antorchas, Ministry of Social Welfare, etc,) and donations. We have also sold hand-made paper kites, built by teenagers and young adults, saving part of the earnings for the workshop. Anyhow, the costs for operating a workshop are high, and you need to be always foreseeing how to afford it.
To conclude, I wish this experience results interesting for those who work with children, either in formal environments or in informal educational situations. Kites hold a wide array of possibilities, and there's plenty to explore and create. It goes without saying that I'm at your disposal to keep talking on this matter and sharing experiences.
My best regards and best wishes,
Diana
