Creative and educational intervention with the ONOFFON project in the Juan Montalvo Commune, Ecuador.
Among the activities carried out during the development of the ONOFFON project, the creativity workshop led by Mauro Rojas made it possible to connect with an audience whose life experience is a great contribution to observing how relationships are woven in rural communities.
 |
| Women from the Juan Montalvo commune create figures with total creative freedom. |
With the coordination by Alfredo Moreira, who allowed the rapprochement with the Juan Montalvo commune in the Province of Santa Elena, in Ecuador, a creative moment was shared with older adults, including a mask workshop.
The activities that made up this meeting not only nurtured the participation of attendees through drawing, creating masks and modeling figures, but also left the door open to begin building trust with an underserved community, and due to that position , sharing information about your daily experience is carried out with great caution.
 |
| In Juan Montalvo we met Ricardina, who still has the hats that she knitted herself six decades ago. |
 |
| One of the masks created by the participants. |
Thanks to adequate treatment in relationships, inside and outside of creative meetings, we are able to better understand the history of the inhabitants of Juan Montalvo, even causing them to recognize their greatest strengths through various moments of dialogue.
Activating ancestral memory was one of the greatest achievements of this creative intervention, detecting, without any indication from the instructor, how several assistants began to model the paste prepared for the mask workshop.
 |
| The ancestral memory was evidenced through figures modeled by the workshop attendees. |
The openness achieved of course nourished these activities upon listening to the stories of the participants, which flowed with a feeling of trust. At that moment we understood that the methodology applied during several days of workshop meetings was correct, taking care of the human aspects as the main task.
Thanks to this exchange, our approach with the men and women of Juan Montalvo expanded our vision in a crucial way, understanding the great pending work that needs to be carried out to promote our natural and cultural wealth.
