Semillas de Amor: Field trip update

April 2

By: Sarah MacCarthy

It has been two weeks since I left Turbaco, Colombia, but I am eager to share the story about our field trip to Cartagena with sixty-five children and twelve adults. Saturday morning, March 15th, we all woke up early and prepared ourselves for a fun-filled day in Cartagena. We put on our Colombian soccer jerseys and headed to the corner where the bus was going to collect us. We loaded up and the adventure began! The children were so incredibly excited, as many of them had never been to the city before, let alone seen the ocean. Eager eyes stared outside the bus as we rolled through the busy, traffic-filled streets en route to the city. Music was playing, and the kids were singing loudly.

The bus came to a stop outside the ancient-walled city, and the kids unloaded into the park. We carefully escorted the children through the streets and arrived at "La Universidad de Cartagena". This was the first and probably most important stop on the tour. We attended a presentation, interacted with the staff, watched two short videos and explored the library. The kids were engaged and interested the entire time. At the end, everyone snacked on hot dogs and soda in the beautiful university plaza.

The tour continued as we split the group into two smaller groups. This allowed us to take half of the group to the gold museum and and the other half to the Palacio de la Inquisición, a common tourist stop in Cartagena. We toured both facilities, and the kids enjoyed both experiences. After well-guided tours and several short videos, we headed outside to Bolivar Park. The kids were able to run around and burn some energy before the pizza arrived. We ended the field trip with pizza in the park.

As you can see from the pictures, there were many smiles, many firsts and overall the trip was a success. The trip to the university gave these young, impressionable minds a look into the opportunities ahead. The trip was invaluable, and I was glad to be a part of the experience.

Thank you to Eagle Condor for making this trip possible.

Semillas de Amor: Bottle cap art project

March 14
By Sarah MacCarthy

The last seven days has been filled with washing, planning, painting and glueing plastic bottle caps for the new sign to hang outside the foundation. Previously there has been no title on the building in Nueva Colombia. Our goal with the art project was to work together "as a team" to create a sign to represent the foundation. We incorporated the colors of the Colombian flag into the design. Luckily yellow, blue and red bottle caps are the most abundant colors of plastic bottle caps here in Colombia. In comparison we found very few green, purple and orange caps but incorporated those colors into the border. Enjoy the pictures below! We are excited with the result.

Semilllas de Amor: Recycling project update

March 9

By Sarah MacCarthy

It has been a busy week here at Semillas de Amor. We finished the collection and washing process of all the plastic bottle caps. We will see the project come full circle this week.
This week I would like to highlight Jessy, one of the young boys at the foundation. You can see him below in the top, left picture. The art project has brought together various classroom themes that we have been working towards, including working as a team and setting goals. Jessy did a great job this week and worked well in the team environment which is essential for the completion of this project.

Our goal setting has been expanding from short-term goals, to medium-term goals and will conclude next week when we go to the University of Cartagena and think about our long-term goals.

This will be my last week in the foundation and it will be a busy one! We will keep you updated on all the excitement to come.

Semillas de Amor: Recycling project

February 28
By Sarah MacCarthy

Semillas de Amor in Turbaco has been busy collecting plastic bottle caps for our upcoming art project. The idea originally came from my cousin, who is a middle-school art teacher in Colorado. We are working towards two different goals. The first goal is to work together as a "team" to accomplish a larger project and the second goal is to recycle these bottle caps that would otherwise remain in the street. The kids bring as many "tapas" as they can to the foundation each day. In another week, we will start to wash, design and assemble a sign for the foundation.

The field trip to Cartagena is still in the works and that will be another exciting event coming up in March. We hope to tour the local university, visit a couple museums and take the kids out for pizza. It should be a great experience.

Stay tuned for more photos and updates to come!

Karen, Nohemi and Zuliney arrive to the foundation with the bottle caps that they have found.

The local Turbaco kids have been helping us with our upcoming art project.

Semillas de Amor: Quick update

February 10
By Sarah McCarthy

The end of the third week has come and gone quickly. This last week, we were able to celebrate several birthdays. Diego, a member of the foundation from Turbaco, turned 10 on February 5th!

This is a short update but we are in the process of planning several new projects at the foundation in the next month. Please check back for further updates soon.

In early March, we are planning a field trip to Cartagena. We hope to visit a local university in the old town as well as do a small city tour. Also, we have recently put up a good behavior chart in the foundation and each child is working towards this goal so that they can participate in the field trip!

Semillas de Amor: Meet Sarah

February 1
By Sarah MacCarthy

Hello. My name is Sarah MacCarthy and I am a new volunteer here at Semillas de Amor in Turbaco, Colombia. The second week of my internship has just come to an end and it has been an amazing learning experience thus far. This past week at the foundation our focus was about demonstrating our talents and learning about the talents of our classmates. The week started off with a basic discussion on talents and by the end of the week all the kids have practiced up for the big TALENT SHOW! 

I would like to highlight one participant in the talent show named Dayre. He is a rambunctious little kid that not only demonstrated his many talents to us but he also displayed to me that he understood the lesson. Near the end of the talent show, he asked me if I was going to sing and I explained to him, "singing is not my talent." He then politely asked me what my talents were and we had a good discussion. I thought this was a perfect demonstration of the lesson and what we had been talking about during the course of the week. Dayre has a lot of energy and he was able to use his energy to sing and dance for us this week. It was a successful week at the foundation and I look forward to more positive learning experiences in the future, for both the kids and myself.

 Uris introducing Dayre's act in the talent show.

 An artist demonstrating his talents to the group.

 These two young ladies danced, danced, danced.

The cheering section.