Gutsakisana: A space where we all feel safe and free to learn, to ask, to be curious, to fail, to be who we really are. We talk in the first person plural as we are all learning and experiencing changes. We don’t aim to be teachers, but more like guides to support the children in developing their own paths. It’s an inner process of knowing ourselves, themselves, of finding out our dreams and potential, our strengths and weaknesses. The creative process of growing can be sometimes hard but we give our best to help this path to be as pleasant as possible. Gutsakisana aims to: bring children together from all backgrounds, social classes/levels, religion, skin colours, cultures and languages etc. In a country where the social distances are so huge, it is urgent to have a safe space where all these young people feel included, loved and respected. We learn from being and sticking together, from changing experiences, from opening our hearts to the unknown. In order to create, we need to free our imagination, to trust and to take risks. All of these tools help our spirit go further and continue creating new things, things that remain pure and honest that are made with our heart and help us follow our dreams. At Gutsakisana we do: drama, dance, music, culinary skills, meditation, yoga, traditional games, reading stories (storytelling), drawings and other art forms, anything that the volunteers we receive can share with our group. We celebrate all the festive dates in the calendar such as: Carnival, Children’s Day, Ocean’s day, Halloween, Christmas, even everyone’s birthdays! On those special events we can have up to 100 kids joining us! At the end of each day's activity we all share a hot meal together, which sometimes can be the only proper meal of the day for some of us. Before we eat, we give thanks to Nature, for all of us there and the people who cooked.
