With the beach an hour and a half away and the mountains bordering the city, there are so many ways to enjoy the outdoors in Santiago. Since mid-December, our partner organizations and VE Global volunteers have taken advantage of the warm weather to spend time outdoors with the kids.
As a reward for the six children with the best participation throughout 2012 in Liga de Deportes, VE volunteers accompanied the kids to a waterpark on a hot, sunny day and enjoyed a picnic lunch. The children loved the rush from going down the waterslides, and splishing and splashing in the big pools.
Hogar San Francisco took a week-long trip to the beach with the girls. They swam in the waves, had barbecues, and went to a carnival. It was a great opportunity for the new volunteers to bond with the girls and get to know them even better.
VE volunteers and the boys from Hogar Posada del Niño hiked up Cerro San Cristobal, twice! The hill is the second largest in Santiago! The trek was exhausting but the gleaming smiles when the group reached the top made it all worthwhile.
Mi Club Domingo Savio’s staff, kids and volunteers traveled to southern Chile for a week-long vacation in the Los Lagos region, where they visited small cities and towns like Chiloé and Puerto Montt. For many of the children, this was their first time traveling outside Santiago. They loved exploring the sites and learning about the beauty of their long, environmentally-diverse country.
To celebrate the end of ¡Vamos a Leer!, our program that encourages children to practice their reading and writing skills during the summer months, we organized Carnaval. At this event, the kids used the tickets that they earned for each book they read over the summer to play carnival games and win loads of prizes. They were also treated to a nutritious lunch and got to cool down in the swimming pool for the rest of the afternoon.
