Four organizations, three from Mexico and one from Pakistan, have joined forces to build a virtual gallery that captures children´s dreams, fears, questions, desires and hopes from different countries during the confinement of the Coronavirus pandemic.
In a collective effort to rescue the experiences still fresh in the memory of childhood, Glifos Communications A.C, along with the “Centro de Capacitación en Ecología y Salud para Campesinos” (Ecology and Health Training Center for Farmers), Indus Broadcasting and Communication Pakistan, and the “Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán” (National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition Salvador Zubirán), have taken on the task of collecting drawings, videos, photographs, stories, and other forms of artistic expression, to generate a historical record and reflection on the current health contingency.
Elva Narcía Cancino, president of Glifos Communications A.C., informed that the initiative launched at the beginning of May is called “The way we lived: memories of Covid-19”, and children from the state of Chiapas, Mexico City, and countries such as Brazil, Afghanistan Pakistan, Egypt, France, England, Spain, Ecuador, Italy and The United States are already participating in it.
“Some drawings reflect the positive impact of confinement to nature, others talk about how much the appreciate the quality time they spend with their parents, the online classes, the boredom of not being able to go outside to play, or the time in front or the video games or the TV.”
The exercise has also involved girls who are single mothers, children in refugee camps, and children in urban and rural areas, each of whom reflect their different realities, said Narcía.
“Their strokes and colors will be road maps so that when we get back on track after the pandemic, to remind us that this path must be built mainly for those who will walk it for the longest time and so that these people, when looking at them again, do not forget or get lost.” assures Marcos Arana, director of The Ecology and Health Training Center for Farmers
“In ten, twenty or fifty years, most of those who are children now will still be living on this planet, will have inherited a world with the consequences of what we will learn from this pandemic and what we will have chosen to forget.
Carmen Rosario Lambartinez Arrieta, one of the project´s coordinators, pointed out that the purpose of this international call is to generate positive, creative and resilient ways of expressing the feelings of children about the pandemic and help prevent their mental health. All of this through art in such a way that a historical record is generated and children´s experiences around the world are reflected.
Contributions will be received throughout the month of May on the Facebook page: “Asi vivimos: recuerdos de Covid-19” or via WhatsApp on 9671016942
You can also consult the gallery on the website http://www.glifoscomunicaciones.org/ where the different collaborations will be uploaded every day.
