LET'S BUILD THE FUTURE TOGETHER

Located in the Rodelillo sector of Valparaíso, in the Juan Pablo II neighborhood, the Peumayén kindergarten has just been selected to implement a very innovative outdoor education program: 100 trees will be planted around it and, instead of artificial grass and plastic toys in the playground, there will be a greenhouse, vegetable garden and worm farm.

The kindergarten educator, Fabiola Molina, pedagogical monitor of the program, explains that this "was born as a need in Chile to generate opportunities for children because in the diagnosis that we made as Ilumina Foundation is that we are very low in terms of square meters per inhabitant and green areas, especially in the communes of more vulnerable sectors".

-Why is it important to educate outdoors from early childhood?

-The importance of this methodology in the development of children is that it has a very significant impact on critical thinking, the development of their emotional skills, visual motor development and motivation to learn. We seek to get out of the paradigm of traditional education that says that learning takes place inside the classroom, while outside it there is a very important platform for children because they feel linked to their own nature.

 "It happens to us that 80 percent of the children live in very small apartments, with many people inside, and for them the kindergarten is the space where they even come to recreate, where they can play, touch, run. That is why the project seemed very important to us. Our kindergarten is very clean and we as educators take care that they have a clean, beautiful space, in all the rooms there are plants and they have never broken one, they take care of them. Now, with this program we are going to plant 100 trees and we are going to create five educational spaces in the playgrounds: greenhouse, vegetable garden, worm garden, leaf collection, but we are also going to be trained to learn how to take care of these spaces. Therefore, this process lasts two years. On October 29 we will have the first training," she says happily.

In the most vulnerable sectors, public spaces and squares are less and less available due to insecurity. Hence the importance of the kindergarten becoming a "natural", environmentally friendly and welcoming refuge. For Evelyn Molina, the children of the Esperanza and Felipe Camiroaga camps, of the Juan Pablo II population and of Placeres hill will be the happiest with this transformation on the horizon.

"Educating outdoors implies, for example, that children listen to a story outdoors, that they connect and move with the sound of nature. We are surrounded by buildings, so those 100 trees will not only change the landscape but will also help them connect with the environment. We have always believed that if we instill the love and value of caring for nature from early childhood, we will have more conscious adults, especially now that we see the problem of climate change on top of us. That motivates us a lot. We believe that families will also value what we will do, this change of perspective and a learning experience that will remain with them for life. We have to learn to take care of the world we inhabit", says the director finally.