Conflict Resolution Camp in Santa Ana

Buenasssss my friends! I´ve been sitting in this cyber cafe for about 2 hours now trying to make sure I have every detail right for the Kids-to-Kids grant I´m applying for with Club Cheras. It´s finally done which means, blog time! We are applying for a grant of about $400 that would allow us to pay local artisans to come train the girls in jewelry-making techniques. The funds would also help us to get our own jewelry-making workshop on its feet in order to generate small income for our organization. Kids-to-Kids is a US-based organization that funds arts, education, sports, and environmental projects around the world. Check out the following link if you want to know more about it.

http://www.kidstokids.org/

What I like about Kids-to-Kids is that youth in the United States are leaders in the decision-making process about which projects they would like to sponsor. Anyway, the grant is done and hopefully in a month or so I will know whether or not we´ve been accepted...Keep your fingers crossed for us!

In other news, this past Wednesday through Friday I attended a camp on Conflict Resolution in Santa Ana with five awesome young people from my community. (Pictures above.) For the MC crew, this was the first camp and first time they spent two overnights away from their communities. It was the first time they built friendships with a bunch of Salvadoran youth from outside of their community. It was the first time they spent three consecutive days having fun, talking serious, and being goofy with other kids from around El Salvador and around the world. For this particular Peace Corps Volunteer, the excursion also brought a lot of firsts. It was my first camp with kids from MC, first successful navegation of five hours of bus-hopping through a dangerous city with other people´s kids and a bunch of luggage, and it was the first time I witnessed my campers really open up and grow as people.

I never would have anticipated that three days could have such a profound affect on the kids I took. The day we left, I watched my kids tearfully hug the new friends they´d made and thank the camp leaders for an experience they´d always remember. The whole way home they laughed while reminiscing on all the memorable moments from the camp--the first time I´d seen them so bubbly and chatty.

The camp was organized by PCV Eli Maritz and students from Colegio Mundo Unido of Costa Rica. The students, from everywhere from Brazil to Netherlands to Paraguay, aged 16-17, facilitated small group activities and discussions about healthy conflict resolution. They also led the group in a lot of fun icebreakers and trust-building activities. All the expenses for the camp were covered by Colegio Mundo Unido. The students were great role models for the Salvadoran youth in attendance. They were confident, positive, open-minded, and enthusiastic about making a positive change in the world.

Conflicts are a huge issue in the community I live in. It seems the most common protocol for any kind of dispute is ¨sweep it under the rug, and let the anger boil up silently inside of you.¨ Cecilia, a psychologist who attended the camp, explained that the reason for this may be that these are the children of a generation that witnessed a horrendously gruesome civil war. Their parents, having survived such a horrible conflict that stretched over years, struggle to face conflicts that arrise in their daily lives. There is often miscommunication or lack of communication entirely and the kids have adopted this same behavior. I really enjoyed hearing the kids open up about how they preceive conflict management in their communities. It was so insightful hearing about it from the perspective of the youth that experience it. I could go on and on about this camp. One of my campers has told me that she would like to apply to study at Colegio Mundo Unido. So I am investigating the application process for her now. The camp was really excellent and my only regret is that I couldn´t have brought more kids to benefit from it.

The school construction in MC continues and is expected to last 6 months. In the meantime, classes are held in the shade of Morro trees behind the construction zone...Not the most ideal learning setup. They have constructed some temporary sheet metal classrooms but they heat up like ovens under this brutal Salvadoran sun and neither the kids nor the teachers can bear to be inside. Everyone is making it work the best we can.

I can´t believe we are in March now...Hard to believe I´ve been in MC for 6 months now, 8 months in El Salvador. March 15th I am leaving for 11 days of paradise bliss in Belize with my good friend Sarah. I can hardly wait!

Sending good vibes to all of you amazing individuals back home. Thanks for reading!