For four months I have organized breakdancers from Barrio San Francisco (a Christian based team) to come to Futuros Valores- Casatere (the centre for older boys) to teach the boys some new moves, interact and share ideas. A few of the boys at Casatere already knew how to breakdance but have learned some new techniques from this team whom were the Colombian champions in 2006. There is a competition coming up soon, and the team have organized for the boys from Casatere to perform, they choreographed their dance on their own and performed it for us the other night. Some of the kids from La Casita, (the centre for younger boys) that are interested in breakdancing have also been invited to take part. Each week I bring which ever volunteers are interested in helping out, which the boys really like because they love meeting new extranojeros!! (hehehhoho). We bring along a map talk about where they're from etc, and there are a few students that we teach English to as well.
I have also brought other teachers to Casatere, for example an artesian who taught macrome bracelet/necklace making, a Capoiera team and I am always on the lookout for other teachers for new and different workshops. There are still regular visits to Casatere so this is a scheduled activity that volunteers can either come to and/or teach something. At the moment there is a guitar teacher coming every Tuesday, which the boys seem to really enjoy. We thought it would be a cool idea to get someone to teach music of some sort but put it aside because of the lack of instruments. It turns out that all I had to do was ask (give everything a go!) as they had a closet full of new guitars and other instruments, which no one ever mentioned to us!
A lot of the boys home have two groups of students; the morning students, 7am-12pm, and the afternoon students, 1pm-6pm. This can make it a little difficult for planning things. For this reason I scheduled most activities for the night when all the students can be there.