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For some time, De Menor A Mayor (from minor to major) has been dedicated to exploring the various styles of the Latin American folk music. The group has revived a music that is rich, complex and fun to play as well as to listen. Five musicians of Latin American origins come together and showcase a repertoire from various countries, including Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Colombia. Within these styles the instrumentation varies and a spectra of sounds are explored through the winds of the zampoñas and quenas, strings from the charango, tiple,  venezuelan cuatro, and the sweet sound of the harp. The mix is complete with the vocals of our strong female singer Marianela, who will be
celebrating 30 years of popular singing. Joining us this evening are Our Lady of Guadalupe church choir and Inca Peruvian Folk Dance group. Proceeds raised will support Sombrilla’s international development projects in Peru and Guatemala.

The 6th Edmonton Scouts will host a bake sale at the intermission and there will be coffee (from our Peru Project area) for sale. Proceeds will support
Sombrilla’s projects in Peru and Guatemala

The concert will be on
Friday June 10th doors opening at 7:30 and music at 8:00 p.m.
Holy Trinity Anglican Church
10037-84 Ave.
Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door and $10 for children under 16

Tickets are available at
Earth’s General Store, 9605-82 Ave.
Tix on the Square, 9930-102 Ave
Acajutla Restaurant, 11302-107 Ave
Latin Bakery, 5716-19A Ave

or you can contact us at
sombrillahome@gmail.com
demenoramayor@shaw.ca
Flavio 780-953-3023
Sarah 780-988-2976

De+Menor+a+Mayor+concert+poster

A warm hello to all of Andean Alliance’s supporters. My name is Lila. I am the most recent arrival here at Lazy Dog Inn where I am assisting Berta, the current education volunteer. Together we are teaching in the Yurac Yacu Education Center with a morning program for pre-school children and an afternoon program for elementary and middle school students. I am thrilled to be a part of this well-established and always growing enterprise.

After just a few weeks here, I now know everyone’s favorite puzzle, which students can write ‘big’ and ‘little’ As, and who can be counted on to cause mischief. I was lucky to arrive as the school’s attendance is growing. Welcoming new kids means both an increased demand for the teacher’s time and attention, as well as a need to develop lesson plans geared towards different age levels. Together, Berta and I are able to divide the children into two groups and target our teaching towards skills that are specific to discrete age groups.

Thus far some of the things I have enjoyed are reading my favorite children stories to the class in Spanish and the enthusiastic hugs that the kids give everyday. Some of the challenges include explaining algebra in a foreign language and adapting to the different cultural educational expectations and norms in Peru. As I continue to work here, I am sure that both rewards and challenges will continue to abound!

We would like to thank Sarah Cashmore for the donation of a felt board and Peggy and John Folinsbee for bringing it to Peru. The kids can use it to stick their names, the days of the week or different shapes to it and by that practice to recognize them.

Another big thank you goes to Katy Cox for the the donation of books and puzzels.

Thanks a lot!

After a short New Year’s break in the first week of January the Centro Educativo Yurac Yaccu started into the year 2011 with a holiday program for the local kids.
Children in Peru have two months of holidays in January and February, which can be a long time with little intellectual activities, especially here in the rural area. In the last two months I could see a lot of children herding animals and some girls told me, that they help and learn by that from their mothers during the holidays. The main occupation is to participate and support the daily life and work in their families. But without practice and support, without contact to books and numbers, children between 6 and 12 years, who attend primary school can forget a lot, in terms of reading, writing or maths during two months of holidays.
So, we offered for the holiday time in the afternoons reading and writing as well as maths lessons for primary kids and English lessons for children who attend secondary school. The idea was to connect studying with creativity and fun. According to that there were a variety of educational games played, innovative materials used and lot of active participation requested from the children.

First just a few kids started coming to the classes, but after the first two weeks the number of children began to increase, so that we had more than 30 children in the afternoon and until 15 in the early childhood program, which takes place in the morning. Fortunately two young women from the area showed interest in helping with the afternoon classes and became assistant “teachers”, which was a gain to everybody. It was not easy to come up to all the different levels of abilities , but still we were able to give a possibility to practice and strengthen the skills of those kids, who attended the classes regularly. And there are already news of success reaching us: one little girl has passed the grading test in her school and can attend the next grade now, because her reading skills have improved. Now we hope, that news like these will spread and children as well as parents will more and more realize, that studying and education can be fun, but also brings improvements.

For the afternoon classes we have to wait and observe now, what the attendance will be like after public schools have started again. In the early childhood program we already could develop a stable group of eight children. A parents meeting is the next step to organize a parents association, which is necessary to arrange different activities, like health days, and built up a formal and more binding base for this group. Some mothers yet came up with the idea to cook for and with the kids. Through more personally involved parents, we also hope to attract other families to send their children.

Mothers decorating playing houses, the morning class kids have painted before.