Hi! I just arrived in the Edgeryders community, i was travelling in Morocco and i was welcomed in the house in Sidi Kaouki. I met amazing people and i had a great time.
If you came to Sidi Kaouki to work and engage with the local community, if you want to be a volunteer and
you love working with people of different cultures, I’d like to share some ideas with you, so that you can continue doing the work that others did before you arrive.
I had the privilege to spend around ten days in the OpenVillage house in Sidi Kaouki. Let me tell you some ideas that i have and share with you a part of my experience while living in Kaouki.
Education through art
Art is a bridge, a universal common language beyond words that we can use in order to work with people from different nationalities, cultures and ages.
Education through art means that the person that takes the role of teacher attempts to provide to the one who’s in the role of student with resources to stimulate their creativity, imagination and expression. Of course, there are many ways to achieve this educational goal, there is not one perfect way that always work, so to have flexibility and the capacity to adapt to different styles of doing things is very important when we interact with people we want to do activities with, those things that work in some environments and situations might not work in others, those things that work with some people might not work with other people. Anyway, I will share a few ideas and tips that you can implement, I hope these are useful for you.
Upcycling / Crafts
All around the Sidi Kaouki beach there is a lot of trash lying around, this is caused by both locals and tourists and is very bad for the enviroment. So we went for a walk to pick up some of these trash and we decided to turn this garbage into new things, and so we did this workshops with the local children to teach them how they can use the trash that is lying around and turn it into something they can play with. Also kids will learn the value of these materials, they will be more aware and specially they will have a good time during the creative process and afterwards. By making something with their own hands they will feel empowered, creative and they will have a new toy,
We did clubs for juggling with used plastic bottles and bamboo sticks and wallets with used tetra packs, packs of juice and milk. Kids engaged immediately and we enjoyed a lot creating together, they were really focused and at the end they seemed happy and satisfied!
Mandala drawings
Drawing and painting a Mandala is a therapeutic activity, because the person who’s making it focuses on the shape of the circle of Mandala and the details around it and enters in a state of serenity and concentration.
In order to do this with children start by showing them different examples of Mandalas and draw one yourself so that they can see what’s it like. Then draw a small circle in a blank sheet and hand it to each one of them, and they’ll pick up quickly, because Mandalas are archetypical images that belong to the collective subconcious, so everyone understands what they are, they’re like flowers.
Keep the creative flow!
Chidren seem so happy and what a great way to engage young minds in fulfilled positive work. Nice mandala drawings. It really is healing artistic meditative process. Nice work
. it was really a great idea 