Read about the ECI and Reto Juvenil partnership here.
Eight Canadian and Australian Reto Juvenil volunteers have been volunteering in Northern Costa Rica since mid-May. I had a chance to meet with them in Costa Rica’s capital, San Jose, before they left to rural village of Coquitales de San Jorge. We had a successful 3 hour session together on Earth Charter. The idea was that these volunteers would use their knowledge on Earth Charter in the village and organize some type of an action project on sustainability with the locals.
On June 13th the group organized an Earth Charter day! I travelled to Coquitales de San Jorge to join this special event. The village where the volunteers are based is very remote, small and poor. The group has been living and working with Fundación Resplandecer and constructing a youth shelter. 
During their Earth Charter day, the volunteers concentrated in celebrating the community life and diversity. The event started at 9am and lasted until mid-day. Children with their parents participated in different types of games and exercises that embraced Earth Charter. Some forty kids were eagerly taking part in actions like treasure hunt and human pyramids. The games were selected based on how educative they were and the children learned about team work, environment and differences between Costa Rica, Canada and Australia. The parents were educated on sustainability with fun and clever posters. The volunteers planned to use those posters also in the local school in their weekly English classes.
The Reto Juvenil volunteers keep putting Earth Charter in action in Central America! A new group is coming to Costa Rica next week and another group will start in Guatemala at the same time. ECI is very happy for this partnership!
Best regards,
Jaana Laitinen
International Youth Facilitator
Earth Charter International
