An election with a lot of emotions and surprises!

The posters falling off the walls, the last speech is given and every day life takes over attention after the president is chosen and the party of Raphael Correa took over once again!


After the last election during April, the former president Raphael Corea was elected once more for the following four years, eventhough there are different opinions about the outcome. While the rich and poor still holding on to his policy, feels the middle positioned person in society not to be seen or heard, and helpless, without any possibilities to improve or change their situation.

While i was talking to many different people i figured the separate development between looking into the future, and still holding on the past.

So the president who run the country before Correa took over, was quiet unprofessional, and cost the country a lot of money,patience and time (6 months) without further development, ending with him finally leaving the country from Quito by Helicopter with him his family and a huge amount of money. But still he could reach a high number of PRO-voices out of the society when he applied now for another time, shocking for us, and at the same time it gives us an perspective on the little opportunities for change, and many problems in organizing such an election or naming new candidats.

In the last 8 years Ecuador had in total more than 12 different presidents!!!

I don´t really know if i like or dislike the new/old president eventhough i have to say he tries hard to contribute what he can for his country, and does see the poverty as much as the strange laws for rich people not to pay taxed or government fees. Time will bring knowledge and will show if this president can hold his policy up for the whole four years!

April on a second view!

Monthly meeting (March) with the parents to elect a new president and talk about further plans to get our own premises!The participation differs from month to month, and it is not unusual to just see a few faces on a regular base!



My therapies are much less now than in the first 3 periods of my internship, so i use the chance next to fulfill all the study work until the end of May, and to meet the parents one by one as well as in partner sessions during the weekends.
I am pretty happy about the process in it, and have experienced that most of my clients and their parents are quiet grateful and open for reunions concerning their quality of living together. A lot of people do never get the chance to afford or organize psychological help and there are not many therapist and other professionals willing to come in the “Barrio” (city-area) and work on a voluntary base.
There for I am as well very glad it is possible to involve the psychologist of the project Germania, to join my on her duty days and speak with them, after I made sure myself (alone) that it is not just ok but the parents understand the necessary step of getting in contact with her, to talk more specified about their problems, misuse and needs.

By organizing it I try to get the children in as well a bit later (after 3 to 4 meetings), to let the parents hear and see the very own wishes of their kids for the future and what is keeping them away in develop and grow up in a safe environment. By giving a bit of a “neutral” conversation leader we have the chance to create a new forum in which there are no room for searching the guilty one, but more for listening and gaining more understanding in what the family members need inside and missing during the former development.

My schedule in meeting the parents are more or less regular depending on their duties and work times, which are quiet variable from family to family. I try to get more into their every-day life and accompany them first in tasks and housekeeping before I ask individually to come in for a session during the project time or during the weekends with their husband.

At the stage I see 3 of the clients parents during my week, and I try to see them at least 1 and a half hours to give enough space in getting used to me, the new situation and to talk with their partner about meeting me than later with the two of them and of course with the psychologist. Usually I take one appointment on Saturdays and the rest during the week. All the 3 of them are parents of children I finished my therapy in the end of April, and two of them are raising their children alone, so I concentrate on just one person to stabilize the communication between mother and child. The other parents (not married but partner for 4 years, both did bring children inside the relation ship and they live with 8 people in a very small house with little money and no help outside the projects support) do have problems with getting along and not using violence inside the house.

I am exited how the process will go on, and in what way I can improve and help out the families in the interest of my former clients. For now the contact is built and the understanding for therapy and psychological accompany grows in their minds and heads.

Especially here in “Santa Maria” I have to be very careful to treat this parents and introduce them to my work field, so that they feel more than comfortable to open up to me and Germania. I decided not to join the psychological conversations in the first place, to not overwhelm them but still do prepare drama activities the psychologist can use to easy up the beginning of such a session, and to use the media drama to tell each other wishes, needs and disappointment out of a different perspectives (not judging or searching for the guilty one in the relation, but more to show the other one better why the person acts this or that way).

Welcome to April and its process;)...

…Good by period of four of my clients, and the beginning of the last two therapies for my internship!

Wow time is so fast, that I feel sometimes overwhelmed by its changes and development. I had to figure out for the first time how to end a therapy in a good way, to let the client feel he could close it up and use the gained goals of the sessions as well in every-day life situations. It was hard for me to let go, especially when I see the changes in their behavior and development we could reach during the last couple of months too. I felt kind of sad but at the same time released as well. The in total 6 therapies running during the week cost a lot of energy and I sometimes was overworked by all the different sessions, problems and organization I had to do.

In evaluate the process I still (of course, there for I am a student) find a lot of thing I can and will work on, but all in one I am happy with my own professional development, and it is amazing if you are able to see the differences in behavior or changes in relation within the families, etc.

I figured out that it is always the best to provide more time than needed for the therapies in case that there are extra activities or other events keeping the client away from the therapy session, so you have a “spare appointment”. Here in Ecuador this is not irregular and I was confronted with a lot of different problems in meeting on a tight schedule. There for I am convinced to prepare well but still the more important ability to adapt to your surrounding and its cultural in actual moments. Being able to work flexible and variable made me see that there is a lot of new opportunities in this habit, which can be positive as well as negative influence on the relation with the clients.

I had to distance myself from the European opinion of being in time means as well being rely-able, but with the help and support of the team, by now I have to seriously prepare the other way around for my return in the Netherlands;)!
Good by, was for me a chance to summa all our works together (pictures, paintings, profiles, etc.) and hand it to the client (in advance I prepared a little box and copied all of the works for my own and the psychologist uses). They really liked to look back in such a visible and strong way on our development in therapy, and I am pretty happy that all of them were proud of what they reached during our work relation.

Introduction classes in ParaDarEsperanza

Louardes has the smallest kids (from 2 to 5 years old), and accompanies them for the day with little games, or creative work, in which they can improve their motor skills and bond in social relations. She already works for the project since it is founded, and works as well in the mornings for a class in school (nearly same age in the other job as well). We profit a lot of times from her great sense and a lot of experiences. Louardes is a very patient and helping person, who is busy taking over the directory of the project, and the financial responsibility, but never complains.

Liliana now has the second group with a lot of children between 6 and 9 years old. She is just finished her studies to become a social worker in education to find a second job in the mornings. her classes are mostly very colorful in the sense of using a lot of different materials to stimulate the creative development of the kids, while choosing for themes such as hygiene, how to walk safe in a city, and other every-day themes important to the kids in that age. Her ideas are always new and offered well prepared, even though it is hard to get the attention of the whole group, she takes the time necessary to explain it to everybody.

Mireya is a educated teacher in a college, where she is attending class in the morning. In the afternoon she is the head of the homework group which is changing all the time, depending on the tasks the kids get from school. Mostly her kids are between 7 and 12 years old, and she assissts all of them properly to finish, start or deal with their tasks from school. We are based on a school fundation which is showing here still the biggest influence.

Ella´s group is forming the oldest kids between 10 and 15 years old. She builds up her lessons similar to the school system, and tries to involve themes important in that age such as identification, sex and self confidence. Mostly are themes treated around a weektime to let the kids be familiar with procedure, consens and meaning of it for themselves. Ella is the only teacher who is not Ecuadorian, but a peace corp volunteer from the states. Her work (around 2 years now) in the project is very meaningful and she already invented a lot of improvements in organisation and structure in Para dar Esperanza.

Next to the classes and school frame, we do offer psychological help and therapy to the kids, formed from the ecuadorian psychologist Germania, and me as the drama therapist student in the project. Besides this meanly working members, we get volunteers nearly every month who are willing to assisst and help out where needed, depending on their own skills and favors.

Impressions workshop March 2009

WORKSHOP „LAS MASCARAS“ – PARA DAR ESPERANZA
 My dear friend and art therapist Johanna came in the end of February to visit me and to have a stop in between travelling from the Netherlands to Honduras, where she is going to work for the next 1/1/2 years with and for the famous and sophisticated Dutch development cooporation "ICCO / Kerkinactie" and their sub-organisation "Togetthere” (http://www.icco.nl/delivery/main/nl/).
 Before she arrived here in Quito, Mariscal Sucre, we communicated a lot about possibilities with which she could gain more knowledge about the media of drama in therapy and I was open to get to know more about art in therapy from her experiences and education. At this time the idea of offering a workshop in which we combine both medias grew and got into our minds. We brainstormed a lot about what we could offer probably in that small amount of time (official planning was to offer it three days in a row with a specific group).
 The idea of creating masks appeared to me as a very good idea, because I have not done it before here, and I had a lot of imaginations about using theatre/drama to play scenes with it, so we used the first days of Johanna´s arrival to plan which materials to be used and involved and how to plan the three days more concrete. After we bought the necessary colors, paper and elastic bands, we began on the practical planning how we going to use the time available to us and the group of Ella´s class.
Planning:
Workshop day 1:
 After we begin with a warming up game of drama, in which the kids learn to focus on each other (“change three items of your appereance”) Johanna gives an introduction about how to mix and use the basic colors for the children so that there are more colors available for them to create the cartoon paper masks we prepared at home, next to this explanation we plan to go through a lot of different emotions with them, so they can have an idea of what are possible expressions for the mask.
This introduction and color lessons are just the first part of the day. After everybody is aware of what is possible to do, they go start to decorate their masks with the help of Johanna, Ella and me. After we have just 10 minutes left we try to make an evaluation of the experiences the kids made during the day and working on their very own masks
 We use today to introduce our two medias slowly to the children, and try to make a good start with letting them paint and create something of their own, we want to round it off by tomorrow and start with the use of drama and the masks created in a art therapy surrounding


Workshop day 2:

 We split the two hours in two parts, in which we try to finish all the tasks connected to the art task, and start the part for drama with the masks (today the kids can edit their masks with other materials such as glitter in different colors)
 My drama activity will be connected to their individual process of the mask, which emotion to choose for it and we will use our poster of emotions which we create in advance. I want them to form small groups of 3-5 people (depends on the amount of children in the group) and all play a role game in which they represent the emotion they can identify their masks with. After we had enough time to prepare the short role play, we come together to reflect the groups work. Every group gets the same attention to present their play and be questions or giving feedback to them.


Workshop day 3:

 The third day is especially for spare time in case we can not finish everything in the time we thought. Otherwise we use the time for a long and good evaluation of the activities and make a “warming off” game to get relaxed after working on one theme for three days. For this activity I was thinking of a groups game, which has the sense of giving them and their bodies a cooling off and feeling the single body parts, while walking around in the room. After they are in silence and by themselves, I want them to sit down and first realize every noise in the room, and outside the room and in the end listen to their own body and how it feels.
 I still believe that we need more time for preparation and realization than in the optimal work surrounding, so I am pretty sure we will use every day full and with enough attention for everybody.



Evaluation:

Once again did I learn a lot about the differences in work atmosphere and need of time and introducing professional drama instead of offering activities in a large group.
We made mistakes but in total was the workshop successful and we could combine both medias in a good way.

Of course was the fact influencing that it was the first time for both of us to offer such an activity in this specific project here in Ecuador. I worked with masks just a few times and invented more than I put background knowledge on it, which was in some senses (like active participation and concrete description of my own imaginations to the kids and Johanna) good and productive, but in others, like the actual process for the single kids, negative points, but still good experiences to hit learn effects out.

First of all was the amount of children, who wanted to participate way to high, and we could not stop them coming in during the first day, so we had to form some new masks out of cartoon in the project. We had more than 20 children participating, and so the introduction which just about 16 kids followed properly was given individually during the process to the late coming once. We planed just to take over Ella´s group when we figured that there were just a few kids coming in that day, so we offered Liliana´s group as well to come, and slowly but (actually typical for the Ecuadorian mentality I experienced in the project, to come in at some time not particularly on a regular base).
So the individual member of the group got on working very much by themselves, and everybody got to share the plate of colors. (BIG LEARNEFFECT!)
We had the chance to evaluate the first two days good in the evenings together, so we decided to do the drama activity separately in the two class groups like planed before to pay more attention to the single groups in the theatre activity. We had assistance from Liliana, the teacher of the third group, and had 9 kids participating (8 girls, 1 boy) between the age of 6 to 9 years.

Even here I have a lot of small learning points about how to prepare, and sometimes how important it is to plan for the exact amount of people in the workshop, so that the organization runs more fluently.

All of the children could be accompanied from one of us (Johanna, Liliana and me) and I was glad to had their support to motivate and stimulate the children´s fantasy.

Before we started we closed the door and focused with it our concentration on each other. Johanna and me went through all the written emotions on the poster again and let the kids read them out loud. Everybody went to search for his/her mask or went to look instead for another one of their taste in case they could not join the days before). After we came together again we formed groups of three times three group members and for every group a coach.

The process in the small groups went very well and they presented the scenes in different manners. The presentation showed us once again how difficult it was for most of the children to be put in the spotlight, even though they are very familiar with the people surrounding and watching. They do all show low self confidence and need more than usual stimulation to feel comfortable enough to let other people watch them present something of their own mind.

In the end we gave a lot of attention and time to the single actors, plays and roles (emotions) which still could be guessed by the other children in the evaluation round together. After everybody got their applause and positive feedback they left.
Of course there is not as proper attention in a group with 9 than with 5 children for example, but because we were to therapists with the help and participation of the teacher, it went well in a more split and individual directed way.
Every coach could say a lot about the development and process of their intern group process and I got to know more after we had some quiet moments when the kids had just left.

All in all it was an emotional up and down during this specific workshop, with a lot of smiling, serious and professional moments, which all can be used as new inspiration for the next time,…like my plan to offer it to Ella in the next week, to round the workshop off for them as well. Every child is invited to take his/her mask with home after we could all evaluate it intense enough within the group.

...events and more in february;)...take it from there!

FEBRUARY 2009- PARA DAR ESPERANZA: …How to give an impression about the last month!?...


First I want to change languages to make my profile and blog reachable for everybody who is interested, and English gives me the opportunity to reach out for more people internationally.

February was a very busy and interesting month for me and for my professional development. The most special events during this month have been the workshop I gave in drama about “Amistad” and valentine´s day. Besides that I had time to work through my evaluation from the project and the team members, who got the chance to evaluate my work during the last 6 month and give feedback over the process I made. I could do my medium task about “storytelling” without any problems in three days with two different groups of the older class.
All the special occasions brought me a lot of new experiences and learn moments I want to improve of myself. I will describe them more detailed below:

Workshop “LA AMISTAD” or process oriented theatre based on the improvisation method

For two days I had the girls of Ellas group for preparing a theatre play, which is based on the valentine´s day and its meaning. We had 8 people participating the workshop who all have been between 12 and 16 years old.
I worked quiet spontaneously with the ideas the group collected during the brain storming on the first day, and let them choose between 8 different themes (connected to the title of friendship). Before they chose they formed groups of two up to four people (helping hands from the other groups for a small character in the play possible), and discussed which theme fits most. After we decided who is working with what theme we began to write a script of more or less around 10 sentences for each character and personality within the play. The kids had the chance to choose the place they prefer to play it, and in total the four groups had 30 minutes today to develop their theatre. After we came together in the end for a short evaluation, I could see how exciting the activity seems to be for the group members. The girls had no problem to start working on it, but more on making compromises and combine two minds in one story.

The second day we used to see all the different presentations within the group, give feedback and tips (the others could take the position of the director for the play), and we got back working in the smaller groups for 20 more minutes. Here they had time to improve and adjust their plays with the given feedback and work on their intern communication. After we came back together again we could start to choose everybody singly their outfits and materials they want to use. For them dressing up for theatre is a very exciting thing and they enjoyed to try everything out. In the end everybody had chosen outfit and requisits for the play so we could evaluate our workshop in total before we went back to the classes.

On the Thursday before valentine´s day we presented the small scenes to the other kids, and the group has been very nervous, but motivated. So we could manage to come out in time, eventhough the children did not really talk loud and clear the smaller kids enjoyed the presentation and welcomed/said good by with a big applause! That was a good and strengthening experience for them, I guess doing good for their self confidence as well.

Medium task: “STORYTELLING” …….let it out, let it in, create together!


For the task I could manage to get a group of 6 people from the group of Ella. I took a group of just girls for the first session, and a group of just boys for the second time. For me it was important that the children are same age and feeling comfortable in the accommodation of the group and its leader. For that I chose a one-sex group, especially because the sexuality and contact to the others play such a big part in this specific age group, and are taken so sensitively.

I gave a short impression about my working plan and the time available for us to do it. The girls did need some more time and ask a lot of questions about how to do it, but I wanted them to work spontaneously and without much active leadership, so the process is more concentrated on them. One of the group members got the task to write down all the sentences been said during the activity. The only direction I gave was that every sentence in a row has to begin with “Happily…” and “Unfortunately…”, and so on. So I gave already a bit of the emotions which could be filled in.

After we made a round of asking if everybody knows what to do we started to create the story of a family, which wants to make some holidays on the sea side of Ecuador. The girls did not have much problems to adapt on the sentence said before, but still did not really play with each other, more for themselves and their own imagination. After a while and about 20 different sentences we stopped and repeated everything together. The following step was to play the story within the time I red it out loud. I gave them enough time to arrange or rearrange for a sentence, and we needed about 5 minutes for the realization.

After that I went out of the room for 20 minutes to let them prepare a presentation based on the story but as well filled in with own ideas of what to say, how to say, how to act and what to wear and decorate in the room.
After I returned they had 5 more minutes to evaluate how it was to have the responsibility and free hands for creating their own story with drama materials. I had the feeling they have been even nervous though they just presented it in front of me, and I tried to sell it relatively and tell them that it is more about the process and what they already did till now, so the presentation had less of an examination and more of being just one part of what we created together.
I was more than satisfied about the outcome of my work, especially because I could see the joy and excitement of the group while creating their own story, for the first time for everybody.

“STORYTELLING” ...boys will be boys?!...

Improvements of my first experience with improvisation theatre was, that I give more direction and active leading in the beginning, but less during the work and creation process of the group. There are more points of my role as a therapist which changed during the second time of practice, and so I started to invent more concrete time schedules and we could manage to finish within one day, and 2 hours of creating.
The boys have been more interacting and working together, but at the same time had several problems to take the activity serious and respect the others turn. I could see that the lesson of sexuality they have had before had its influence on their behavior, but still asked myself a lot about the differences which were obvious in the process of the girls and the boys. The boys were a bit older and more self confident than the girls, but could not manage to work without active leadership. As soon as it was just them the working stocked in joking and making fun of each other. Just the structure of the theatre was well done and they were stimulated to make a great play out of a little and not adapting story of them. They did know that it is not the product we were concentrated on, but more the process how we are able to work with each other and combine ideas and visions.
I am more satisfied than I find negative points of this activity, especially by concerning the circumstances and the short time of active communication I could have with both groups. It was defiantly helping that I knew all of them before, had and have some of them in individual therapy and I am known with Ella´s group and her way of working with the older once. I think and learned storytelling is a great and good opportunity to work as well in groups as well as individually. During the task of my study I could get to know more about different manners and methods for storytelling, such as improvisation, bible drama, psychodrama, and so on.

Evaluation from the project, teachers and psychologist of my project
Wow, of course I did hope to get a good in-between-evaluation for the first half of my internship, but I was not prepared to be appreciated and stimulated that well from all the different sides in the project as well as from the university. I am happy that the team knows that I work with motivation and love to be with all of them, especially cause of the open communication in between.
I am really happy to be able to attend this project which especially is influenced by a familiar atmosphere and the smile in everyone´s face when you come or go! There are no conflicts in between the relations of the team, and if there are problems there are always open ears and heards to help work it out the best way!