Summer 2014
Our motivated ubuntu-in-Caldonazzo team once again celebrated a creative art education week with SOS Children's Villages children from many countries this summer. This time around the Caldonazzo lake is about the friendship. How does friendship come about? What does she look like? How is it designed, maintained and lived? What impact does it have on people? To answer these questions we do not need words but action. We go to the riverbed. Everywhere stones are of different size, color, appearance and shape. Everyone collects the stone (s) from which he / she feels addressed. There are really many. Then the stones are cleaned, removed from the sand, so that they can be painted better. We bring the stones into a neutral shape by priming them with white paint to give the colors a better shine. This is a rainy summer in Caldonazzo. The nice thing is that the kids are in even more playful mood. And so they start to paint. They come in groups or individually, accompanied or unaccompanied in the wood workshop. It is exciting and nice to see how the children search the stones and choose which ones they want to paint. Often the smallest children try for the largest and the largest adults for the smallest stones. Although the criteria are not revealed, they are visible after painting. Because the children themselves discover that the stones have their own character, expression and profile. And they act accordingly.
With joy in the skills and desire for new things they release the very own character of each stone. Many adults do not give themselves the chance to participate. And so creates a magical artistic landscape decorated with children's works of stones and colors. The children also demonstrate their artistic ability in designing friendship ribbons. These are symbols in different forms (fish, plane, faces, trees, houses, flowers, etc.). Each child gets three pieces to paint: one of them keeps it, one is for the common friendship wheel and one can give it away to a friend or girlfriend. Many children, however, want to create even more friendship symbols - for the SOS mother, as they say. That's really nice to experience. "I am because you are. And you are because I am "is the expression of life in friendship; a life that is desirable and worth living. The children do not only suspect it. You feel it. They want it too. And they have it: at the SOS Children's Village Holiday Camp on Lake Caldonazzo.
Our Friendship Wheel is now radiantly beautiful and it is nice to see how confident and happy the children's inner moods are when they show and admire their works of art. In joy and satisfaction, your joyful good qualities are visible and tangible. Life is much more than food and a roof over your head. People, young or old, when they really live, live in their memories and ideas, in their hopes and dreams. The final presentation of the Friendship Wheel reveals these moods and feelings. The children experience each moment in his presence and enjoy it. That is the real essence of having vacations and ubuntu, the cultural initiative of SOS Children's Villages is pleased to have contributed again.
Foto: W. Anyanwu