Columbia: CES Waldorf
Continuation of the art workshop for the children and adolescents in Bogotá's favelas
In the art workshop at CES Waldorf, about 180 children model with clay and beeswax, paint with aquarelle, and learn wood carving and sculpting throughout the year. Through artistic work, the children learn to relate their external experiences to their feelings and thought processes. The outer and inner reality meet in the artistic creation and enable a new dimension to understand their own life. This helps the children a lot, because their resilience is promoted and they get new perspectives and possibilities to deal with their life.
After 21 years of existence of the CES Waldorf, the tools for the stone and wood carving need to be replaced and the art workshop needs to be renovated. Only in this way the children can be offered the opportunity to participate in this so important workshop in appropriate premises and with the necessary hand tools and materials.
Therefore, the team would like to buy materials (1,000 euros) and new tools (2,000 euros). They also need support in paying the art teacher who works with the children (7,000 euros). The art educator is also trained in trauma education and is a valuable collaborator, confidant and contact person for the children.
About the project:
CES Waldorf (Corporación Educativa y Social Waldorf) is a non-profit organization in Ciudad Bolívar, a district in the south-western mountains of Bogotá and one of the largest "slums" in Colombia. Here in Sierra Morena, Ciudad Bolivar, the socially extremely difficult neighbourhood characterized by poverty and violence, there are no cultural and recreational spaces for the children and their families and so stresses and needs worsen. This often leads to great anxiety, stress and depression.
Inspired by Waldorf education, CES Waldorf runs a special educational and social project. Through art and culture, and also with medical and psychological care, the children, adolescents and their parents are given the opportunity to deal with their life situation, which is marked by extreme poverty, drugs and violence, and to strive for a more dignified and better life.
Five kindergarten teachers, three social workers, a psychologist, a doctor and seven trained Waldorf teachers, as well as eleven administrative and communication staff take care of the approximately 70 kindergarten children, 150 adolescents and their families.
In Colombia, an armed conflict between illegally armed militias (guerrillas and paramilitaries) and the state security forces has prevailed for more than five decades, causing the rural exodus and displacement of a total of more than four million people. Driven by fear and poverty, new people arrive daily in Bogotá, where they seek refuge in the slums of Ciudad Bolívar. There they try to build a new life amid an atmosphere of violence, neglect, defenselessness and social exclusion. The presence of criminal gangs, the influence of illegal drug trafficking, as well as a lack of job opportunities and poor schooling exacerbate the situation of the population in the mountains of Bogotá.
In the midst of these difficult socio-economic conditions and the precarious security situation, the "House of Colours", as CES Waldorf is also called, represents a place of healing and refuge. With the help of Waldorf education, people here, some of whom have been severely traumatized, find faith in themselves again.
In the "Casa de Colores" - CES Waldorf, the children and adolescents in care (between 6 and 18 years) find protection and security in a safe place. Here they can count 100% on the teachers, psychologists and social workers who offer them support and to whom they can confide their fears, worries, their pain, but also their dreams. Those who grow up in an extremely vulnerable and hostile environment cannot develop self-confidence and self-awareness in a harmonious way. Sensory and physical experiences, as well as balance, movement, and a sense of life are tremendously damaged by the constant experiences of violence in children's families and in the community. The experience and development of their own will is also very fragile. These children and adolescents need to gain the ability to resiliently deal with their difficult life situations and crises, while maintaining good self-esteem and continuing to develop.