Messages of peace in community murals

Children in the village of El Ocote, Honduras, are expressing their ideas about how to oppose violence in their community through colourful public murals.

El Ocote is one of the communities where Plan is running the Prevention of Violence project. Here, it was proposed to create community murals that reflect a violence-free world dreamt of by the local children.

Groups of children met to express their messages on old walls in their communities, using their talent and desire to communicate their ideas to the world and record them. They wanted their ideas of peace to strengthen relationships of understanding and acceptance in the community.

Supported by Nora Moreno (the local school teacher) and Rosa Elena (a mother), they became the architects who paved the way for the creation of new awareness and relationships between them, their teachers and parents and the community in general.

Artist Guillermo, who has worked with various groups of young people, including young gang members, helped translate their ideas into the final artwork. He said: "I observed great enthusiasm by the children to capture their ideas. At first I was afraid they would not participate, but as they started participating in the meetings, I gained their trust.

"The collective mural is a tool that teaches us new relationships and a way to understand life, respecting others' opinions. With the mural we intend to take the youths to a clearer idea of what they want to do and after they would say: we did this and we are proud of it."

Among laughter and good moments, many very good ideas emerged for the mural. Karla Marlene, one of the participating children said: "The idea I presented for preparing the mural was to paint many flowers and once I started painting I loved painting the corn plants and trees because corn feeds us and we get fresh breezes under the shade from the trees. I liked the experience of painting the mural very much because we had fun with our schoolmates and we shared materials".

Jonathan, a sixth grade student who also participated, commented: "I felt useful being able to put in the drawing what I feel and dream, with a world full of trees, animals and living in harmony, without harming each other. That is why I painted trees, an elephant a river and the sun. I liked this because we all helped each other to paint. And one important thing is that we learned how to work as a team; that way things turn out better."