me arts ed

Over Thanksgiving

Emailed to me by Manon Lewis, art teacher, Boothbay Region High School

On Thursday morning one week before Thanksgiving six high school students (from Boothbay Region High School), the Boothbay Harbor Congregational minister (Sarah Folger) and I depart for Guatemala City and Safe Passage as Camino Seguro volunteers.
(The program requires one adult chaperone per three students.)

We will have opportunities to help in the classrooms of preschoolers, elementary children and high school age students.  We have prepared lessons and are bringing down tools and materials to create kites, crowns and hats, masks and cloth murals.  Additionally, we have raised substantial donations to financially support this worthwhile program.

Safe Passage/Camino Seguro is an organization that offers educational programs to the children of people who pick the huge garbage dump in Guatemala City.  Education is not a free commodity in Guatemala and these children would not have the opportunity for an education if it were not for this program. The organization offers over 550 children (tuition,
uniforms and supplies) for a half a day (each day) of education at a public school and then gives them educational reinforcement in arts, sports, recreational activities, computer instruction and English language—–as well as social services.

The Safe Passage program was started by a graduate of Bowdoin College, Hanley Denning, in 1999.  Sadly, Denning was killed in 2007 in a tragic automobile accident while traveling between Safe Passage sites in Antigua and Guatemala City.

My eighteen pages of sub. plans are turned into the office—-bottles of paint, bamboo, glue guns, brushes, tissue paper, feathers, glitter and much more….are packed in my suitcase—-and, since we are donating all of the clothes that we packed and we wear while we are there—we will have some room in our bags for “Guatemalan treasures”!