I’m Celina Perez Beck, a volunteer of Live the Forest. I spent a week in the community El Malton together with Anggie Escalante and Paola Zambrano, also volunteers, working with the people there, mostly with the kids. When we arrived to the community everybody was so welcoming that it made me feel that I was part of them.

We went to the school every morning to work with the children. We did activities like the Tree of Life, where every kid wrote its own pledge and commitment with the environment in a leaf forming a tree with all of them together. We also did the Cloud of Dreams where each of them writes their dreams in a cloud forming the sky.

They all worked great with us, from the youngest one to the oldest one in a single class. They were all so greatfull and glad to have us there, and that made us really happy.
One night we organized the screening of a film for all the people of the community. This activity was meant to involve youth from the area to know more aout their interests. It was not that successful because the film was about nature and I think they expected something else, but we still had a great time. The good thing is that the gathering attractes all the youth from the community! It was a pleasure to know that they are open to doing activities like this all together organized from people like us.

We also asked teenagers if they were interested in having courses to learn other things for them at the community since they don’t have that kind of education there, and it was so good to know that they do want to learn. They asked for computer and English courses.
I want to thank everybody from El Malton for making my week a great experience for me, and especially to the teacher of the school, Glenda, and her family for letting me stay at their home the hole week and for treating me like I was really special.