Today was the last day of ours hot volunteering experience with Pintar en Bolivia. Although short, our experience has been very interesting and has giving me and interesting insight into art therapies. Pintar en Bolivia works with two different projects: kids with cancer, and kids from a burnt centre. In both locations I was very surprised to see how open, creative, engaging and loving the kids with us were. I could feel that they feel grateful for the work we do with them, grateful that some volunteer take time to bring a few hours of entertainment, creativity and joy in a day usually full of treatment and few activities. I think Pintar en Bolivia is a beautiful project and can’t wait to see how it further develops with other projects in Cochabamba.
Another interesting moment of this volunteering was when this week we had the opportunity to learn more about the sad issue of burnt kids in Bolivia, which appears to be a deep cultural issue. Between 16 and 20 kids are admitted monthly in the poorest hospital of Cochabamba for burn treatments, and between 1000 and 1200 operations are executed per year! Burnt kids here isn’t only an issue of kids getting burn by playing with fire or by hot liquids by accident, but many kids get deeply burnt due to some cultural traditions or incidents. Examples include: kids living in the countryside getting thrown into fire by monkey, kids falling into a campfire during a traditional celebration due to a lack of protection, children having similar incident in poor homes where the kitchen as so poorly equipped that the fire is set in the middle of the room, children getting burnt from hot liquids because they have to help in the kitchen, and most surprisingly of all for me: in the county side they believe that if a children pies too much it is because there must be an issue with their kidney. A way to cure it is to sit the kid on burning bricks because they believe the heat would release whatever disease or dysfunction the children would have. The presentation we had on this subject was very heart-breaking and seeing how well the children we worked with are doing (being severely burnt in addition to have poor living conditions and hard family conditions) is something to be proud of. Not everyone can recover of such severe burns; most of the people go through deep suicidal thoughts… we were very touched by the bravery of the children and of the few local doctors who fight every day to save these children. Casa Mosoj Punchay should be very proud of their great work! "Al pasar por un periodo difícil recuerda: aunque hayas perdido grandes batallas has sobrevivido y estas aquí. Eso es una victoria. Demuestra tu alegría y celebra tu capacidad para seguir adelante."
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AuteurHola! I’m Aliénor, a 24 year old life enthusiast and eager to discover the world in any way possible with an emphasis on engaging with local people and cultural exchange! Archives
Mars 2017
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