…Our workshops have gone from strength to strength!
Since starting our weekly sessions in January, we have doubled our number of participants and are now offering two workshops per week. The expansion happened after a visit in July to our local primary school, in one of Nebaj’s more remote and underserved neighbourhoods. Soon after we visited the school, word spread about our arts and environmental education offering and, a few days later, 25 excited children arrived at Casagua to take part.
On the first day that new participants joined us, we were very lucky to have the support of our friends and workshop volunteers, Meryem, Alex, Iris and Aisling. Thank you to them for visiting us from France, Antigua Guatemala and Ireland – Casagua kids love learning about new places and finding different countries on the map!
Meryem and Alex have dance training and facilitated some brilliant movement, rhythm and breathing exercises for the children.
The week after, we implemented our place-based education methodology studying a large-scale map of the Nebaj municipality and talking about our sense of belonging from the local, to the national, international and universal! Our new participants were full of questions about the solar system and lunar cycles, which we’re looking forward to discussing more in our upcoming ancestral agriculture workshops and activities on planting with the moon.
Since expanding our workshops and extending our impact in the local community, we’ve planted many seeds, transplanted seedlings, made art, baked pizza, cooked vegetarian burgers, read books and engaged children in the Mayan cosmovision.
We were delighted to welcome another friend and workshop volunteer from Spain, Darío, to Casagua, where he quickly got to know the children with dynamic games and lots of laughs. Thank you to Darío for facilitating an inspiring arts and crafts activity familiarising the children with the ancient and complex Mayan calendar system and their own nahuales, which are Mayan spirit energies and nature element connection based on when you were born.
August has also been a special month as we’ve welcomed three new Italian volunteers to Nebaj, Giulia, Elena and Arianna. They will be our neighbours for the next year and have already become regular visitors to our Casagua workshops!
We also must give a special mention to Gigi, Antonio, Ari and Mónica, who came to Casagua in July and got stuck in painting stones, making necklaces and dream-catchers and inspiring the children’s curiosity and exploration.
We’re truly grateful to each and every one of our friends, volunteers and supporters who have enabled us to double our impact, extend our reach and ensure that more children have access to creative learning opportunities in the outdoors.
Thank you, gracias and t’an tiixh!