Mapping the terrain of the school and understanding real scale dimensions with the children of San Juan La Laguna.
Today, we had the sixth workshop from the series of design development for the new school in San Juan La Laguna. We worked with older children (5th graders). The purpose of today’s workshop was to visit the site of the new school and understand its real scale size and surroundings. We asked the children to show us some of the key facilities located around the new site.
We started by walking down through a little back alley. We followed the terrain around discussing processes of site preparation for building. The children cleverly pointed out that the terrain would need to be cleaned from rubbish. They suggested that they would ask their parents to help and everyone together will be able to prepare the site for construction. They also said that all big rocks would have to be gathered to one side and coffee trees cut down. There are also several big avocado trees on the site, we all agreed that they would be a great source of vitamins to accompany school dinners. We jointly selected the trees we want to keep.
Then we walked to the front, where a big street connecting the site to the centre of the town is located. We brainstormed reasons why it would be important to us to locate the main school entrance facing this road.
After that we measured the distance from the closest electric post to our terrain and chose an exact location for placing the new post, which will bring electricity to the building. Next we asked the children to show us the surroundings of the terrain.
They then took us to a rubbish disposal side, positioned about 50 m away from the school. It was really interesting for us to listen to their perception and relationships that some children have with this space. Firstly, they told us that there are children in town, living on the outskirts, who come to the disposal site in search for food. We asked if those children go to school but they explained that those families are too poor to afford schooling, instead from a young age the children work to help their parents pay for a living.
As we were speaking about food, a boy approached me and asked whether the children will eat in the new school. After I shared the plans about a garden and nutrition programme that will feed the children and their family he started dancing around and singing, “We will eat at school, we will eat at school!” Some girls, who overheard this conversation ran to a young banana tree growing out of the rubbish on the site and started pulling it out of the ground, shouting: “Sara, Sara we can rescue this baby banana tree for our school garden. In a few years we can have sweet bananas for lunch!” They were saying, “Poor plants, we should water them!”
It was a really touching moment for me and my colleagues, since we all found ourselves in a situation of a real culture and reality clash. It was enriching to see how important it is for the children to make this school dream happen. We really understood what a difference it would make to them and their families. It was a reassuring experience, that all the proposed programmes for the new school building will accommodate the most pressing needs of those little children.
Tomorrow, we will come back to the site with our builders and take down measurements and terrain levels for our design brainstorming session planned for Saturday. This weekend our design team will get together to analyse the outcomes of concept development workshops and decide on a design direction we can pursue.
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