ArT for DEVELOPMENT #OrigamiArt #exposure #fun

So we had two lovely young ladies who were visiting Zimbabwe from their home Australia come in and volunteer their time and skills.

One lesson I continue to learn is the power and advantage of networking~ 

They do say that YOUR NETWORK = your NET WORTH ☆☆

I met these two lovely ladies through their mother - yes their mother. A lovely, intelligent, warm woman who's based in Zimbabwe due to her husband's work. She was helping work on mentorship material for the individuals who continue to come to me for guidance on how to start up and or run their charitable initiatives. I will touch on this in a future post. 

Anyway her daughters were soon coming down and she thought they might like to spend time with my kids...

The rest is history :) •••

••• This session was one of the most chilled, easy going, fun sessions we've had yet.

After overcoming their initial shock and intrigue at the white skinned young ladies presence the kids got comfortable and warmed up to the kind, gentle open spirits displayed by the volunteers. 

#EXPOSURE is everything I believe.
                   And I want my children to get as much of it as possible as soon as possible too:

Exposure is often the difference between
■ Confidence and timidity
□ Knowledge and ignorance
■ Warmth and hostility
□ Culturedness and ill manneredness
■ Self worth and Arrogance
□ bold innovation and limited thinking

Zimbabwe's children need exposure.

Besides the two Australian ladies we also had local Xtreme Team facilitators present as well as a lovely young lawyer lady.

Its not easy taking 52 children through the meticulous, step by step formation of paper cranes. Origami birds.
But the ooh s and aah s and frantic happy flapping of the birds wings at the end  of the session made the exhausting exercise worthwhile.

We also wanted to make sure that each child goes home actually knowing how to make a paper crane on their own. Perhaps with the ambition of making a thousand paper cranes, as they heard in the story of the little ill Japanese girl who was told that if she made 1000 birds her wish her for good health would be granted.

One can make origami birds, dogs, flowers, frogs almost anything and Origami besides being lots of fun is actually known to exercise the brain cells and is a good practice for coordination and intellect.

I don't know if I would ever be driven to create one thousand paper birds out of passion, or for brain exercise or even out of boredom!!  but I do know that origami is a worth while art form that brings out beautiful little pieces worth keeping.

im glad my children have learnt how they too can become Japanese art artists.

♥♥

Why discuss death with orphaned children

Why discuss the death of a parent with the child they leave behind?
GRIEF, MOURNING, LOSS

#FACEZ Mentorship Session 4/2014 - Friday 13 June

I was extremely wary of this session on loss grief and mourning when its time came a few weeks ago. The volunteers and i had no idea what to expect and how to expect the children to respond to opening up about their experiences with the loss of loved ones. Some children have literally lost everybody.

I seriously applaud Xtreme Teams our sessions facilitators and partners for their specialized knowledge and expert child development skills.

Without writing as essay il try to summarise the fun but amazingly important exercises that taught me and the children the simple principles of life, and death, and dealing.

The session began with a fun exercise where the children were all blindfolded, split into groups and given a "shepard" whom they were to follow like sheep. 
Our little blind sheep were then told to follow their shepard using the sound of his voice alone. They marched around the school grounds guided by a voice and each other. They eventually arrived at an area where rope had been tied around various trees (waist height) situated close together forming and endless web of rope.  They were put to hold e rope with both hands and were told to let go only when they found and reached the end of the rope. Which you have already guessed - did not exist.  The alternative given was to call out "I need help!" if and when they felt they couldn't find the end alone.

■■ These two exercises amid laughter, excitement, fear and frustration and jokes taught the kids that one cannot make it alone in life. 

So many situations put us in the dark and sometimes TRUST in the person leading you is the only way to get out of the dark or to a better safer place. It also showed that sometimes although we feel in the dark alone there may be others In the same situation whose hands we can hold and whose help we can use to make it through the dark patches of life together.

And many times we allow ourselves to continue to struggle and toil trying to figure our how to reach the end of the rope, how to exit the webs of confusion, pain and bad experiences when there is almost always an alternative - a person you can CALL OUT TO FOR HELP - a person who's standing on the outside having overcome the same experience you now battle with. 
We learnt that we dont have to struggle alone and we learnt that we must seek help when we need it and not suffer in solitude...

These are literally are all lessons the children themselves deduced from the exercises during the post activity discussion.  It was amazing to watch and learn from.

What now remained for us was to pin point WHO WHERE HOW and WHEN a child can trust and turn to.  and who they should cry out to and HOW. We made the children aware of the facilities and people available to help them in the school and in their community.

Guardians on their own and separately were taught how to BE APPROACHABLE,  how to REACT, how to be CONFIDENTIAL, how to HELP and who and how to REFER children they have identified to be in danger or in need.

#powerfulstuff

And that was just the first two activities...

You really have to have  been there to absorb the full experience. 

We later played ball games linked to painful and negative emotions which allowed the children to express their understanding of particular emotions and tell of a time and instances when they had felt those emotions. 
Many spoke about death, loss, stigma, being misunderstood, rejection, lack, illness and insecurity about their futures.

Although lightened by the gentle tossing of balls;
This exercise was sobering. 
Each child s sincerity was piercing. 
The similarity in experiences and pain was eye opening to us (on the issues most pertinent for us to address) and eye opening to the kids as they formed a bond in learning that they are indeed not alone.
You could also see them finding confidence in themselves and each other; finding a new boldness with which to face the rest of the world, and a security in sharing the strength of solidarity commonality and in knowing they arent weird or cursed or worthless or unwanted or destined for failure because they definitely ARE NOT ALONE.

#wow