APRIL 2015 NEWSLETTER
April has been a great month at Fundación Mariposas Amarillas! We raised 204,150COP from our weekly Quiz Night at La Brisa Loca Hostel, part of which has gone towards providing fruit and snacks for the children every morning as well as replenishing our supplies in the classrooms. We have also put aside 100,000COP towards the purchase of a cooler for the recently finished kitchen at the school.
This month our volunteer Amanda organised for weekly food donations from a local restaurant so that we can offer the kids a hot meal several times a week at the end of class. We are immensely grateful to Mike at Ouzo for this generous donation. Many of our kids only eat once a day at home so this is an incredible boost to their nutritional intake.
Classes at the school this month have focused on strengthening values such as tolerance, honesty, love and friendship and how they feed into each other. The kids made a Value Tree and the volunteers explained each value with an interactive story and various group games. There was a big focus on the alphabet through different writing exercises and songs to enhance counting skills. We started a mini garden in the classroom, making flowerpots from plastic water bottles to teach the importance of recycling. Utilising the introduction of the food donations from Ouzo we spoke about nutrition and hygiene. Art sessions this month have helped to decorate the walls with fingerpaint Colombian flags and everyday shapes.
We had a fantastic parents meeting this month to which almost all mothers were able to attend. We had one-on-one feedback on how each child is progressing in the classroom and spoke to the parents about what they think FMA can do for their community looking forward. It was a wonderful morning with lots of positive ideas, finished off with lunch for the kids, mothers and volunteers made with the food donated by Ouzo.
Over the month we have said goodbye to Sina from Switzerland who was with us for 2 months and Dan from England who spent a month with FMA. We have also welcomed Lisa from the USA, Sarah from England and Laura from Colombia. We look forward to the arrival of more volunteers throughout May and continuing the amazing work our volunteers are doing here in Santa Marta.
A HUGE THANK YOU TO EVERYONE THAT CONTINUES TO SUPPORT FMA!
