Simple people, doing small things, in unimportant places, achieve extraordinary changes.”
This African proverb perfectly describes the actions developed by the Art-Education Sector of the Fraternity – Internacional Humanitarian Missions (FIHM) with children and young people from Santa Isabel Children’s House in Luanda, Angola.
With creativity, cardboard, bottle caps, pieces of wood were transformed into colorful mandalas.
By scraping the surface of a black sheet, using the sgraffito technique, little by little a world of colors and shapes, which were hidden, emerged and revealed beautiful and playful works of art.
This technique, used by the staff of the Fraternity – Humanitarian Missions (FIHM), involved 35 children and motivated the participants to try out new ideas. “The joint work was a wonderful surprise because with this technique we can see that the colors that are present as a base in the deepest layer can tell a new and colorful story”, report David and Madre(?) Teresa, focus of the activity.
Learn by playing
Thus, recycling materials, and with a lot of imagination, simple objects gained new colors and shapes and, playing, children and young people were able to develop their fine motor skills, sharpen their concentration, patience and creativity.
Playing and learning go hand in hand, and provide children and teenagers with the opportunity to see the world in a different way, a world in which everything can change.
About the pedagogical intervention strategies that are being used with the children and teenagers at Santa Isabel House, David explains that “a strategy to discover needs and know how to address them is by playing, because through playing we can see many things, such as the way they interact, or what their culture is like, which is very different from ours”.
The humanitarian member points out that: “By observing their dynamics, we can draw up an approach plan to reinforce strengths and create them where they do not exist. Through playing, easy and simple circumstances are generated that allow reflection and learning; it is much easier to assimilate if we are doing something we enjoy, and this knowledge, when we remember it, remains recorded”.
Mandala workshops – the old gives way to the new
The plaster mandalas workshops had the participation of 31 children and teenagers, between 6 and 17 years old. In addition to providing joy and surprise to new artists, the pieces produced became gifts for teachers and ornaments that will adorn the walls of the Institution.
“It was wonderful to see the figures of the mandalas that the children selected and how surprised they were to see that beautiful pieces of art could come out of plaster”, express the humanitarian team David and Raquel, who focused the action.
In the mandala workshop entitled New Stars, cardboard, bottle caps, lines and pieces of wood were transformed into colorful mandalas in the hands of the 20 children who participated in the activity.
For the humanitarian members David and Raquel, this experience was successful because, in addition to developing various skills of the participants from Santa Isabel Children’s House, it also enabled the “creation of new forms from the old ones”.
Art-Education, through the use of simple and accessible materials, rescues the human creative potential, stimulates and enables the transformation and restructuring of internal emotions. Through playfulness and experimentation, it opens up new perceptions and helps to see life and the world in a different way, where everything can be transformed.
