September 2016

Playa Del Carmen, Mxico

Peace one day in Playa del Carmen

Objective
To raise awareness and create an impact in community about the importance of peace. To reinforce
in kids positive behavior and abilities to manage a conflict.
Summary
World Peace Day is celebrated on September 21st, it is a celebration dedicated to promote Peace.
Peace is a trendy topic lately mostly because of the lack of it everywhere in the world, to take advantage of this celebration we decided to do a related activity in all our projects focusing in many ways
to spread peace and dealing with troubles.
Sadly, in Mexico there is delinquency and the famous drug trafficking war, and even though the area
were we work has not been affected by the last one, people tend to have a hostile response to things
which makes an impact in the kids. This adds up to the way people are educated where unfortunately
there is a mistreatment between people and families.

Fig 1. Escuelita kids and GVI staff

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Report
Based on the objective and the goals of Peace One Day, we created a scavenger hunt full of activities
related to peace and conflict management which we adapted and ran in the childcare projects in Playa
del Carmen. The activity began with questions and answers about what the kids and even the professors thought it was peace, how do they behave and if it was according to a kind of behavior, what did
they do when something they do not agreed with happened and how did they treat other kids and
people in general. The following activity was to work in teams, but not with their friends, to do a
puzzle. After that, between all, we drew and colored a big peace sign without giving any specific order,
this to see how the kids acted by themselves when having to share space and material with others.
The next activity was to blow up a white balloon and give it along with a huge hug to a person they
had been having conflict with and to sort out their differences. To finish we did a battle of opinions
about others, good and bad ones to make closure with a feedback of these opinions. The response of
the scavenger hunt was amazing. We confirmed our hypothesis, kids react as they are used to be
treated instead of how they really believe it is okay. For example, a little one in Ludoteca almost every
time is despising another kid, telling him he is not good for this and that and showing him his weaknesses. During the activity of the balloons this little one went directly to the other kid asking for forgiveness and hugged him with authentic feelings.
He explained us that at his house he is the little one and he is always being treated like that so in
Ludoteca he has to prove he is the big one but he really doesnt meant to. It was just there was no
one to tell him he can act different.

Fig 2. Ludoteca kids and staff ending rally

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Most of the kids we work with are in a vulnerable situation, this because they may not have access to
proper education, they have different disabilities, they suffer some sort of abandonment and they do
not have the opportunities a kid should be able to have, and as they are from different cultures sometimes it is difficult for them to accept different costumes, as well as they dont have the opportunity
to decide whether they want to do something or not. By doing this event we realized they actually
know how to deal with conflict in a peaceful way but in order to meet the expectations adults put on
them they behave hostilely. We still have a lot of work, to provide them a secure space where they
can develop properly. The celebration of Peace one Day reminded them of how important is to treat
and be treated good and that there are always a lot of ways to get to a resolutions without getting in
trouble.

Fig 3. Corazones peace sign

If you would like to know more about the community projects in Playa del Carmen, please visit:
http://www.gvi.co.uk/location/yucatan/

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