Today we'll paint about El Niño

Heavy rains are the topic of those art pieces by boys, girls and teenagers in  Piura's vulnerable sectors. 

Piura, Peru - Many people follow to quantify the effects of heavy rains by El Niño in terms of visible damages and the number of injured ones, but there is a number about nobody has accounted yet: how many people are still mentally affected after the event which  all the population has felt the impact in some degree. 

Inside that hidden counting it is not known neither yet what effect it caused on children, especially of socially and geologically vulnerable sectors as uptowns or rural areas.

Some organizations and volunteer groups understood fastly they had to act on mental health of boys and girls for adult fears don't freeze them, for their own experiences could be released, and for overcoming the episode that meant the total lose for many families.

One of those organizations is Arte Para Todos (Art For Everybody, in English) , joined by Sullana-native but Piura-based reknown plastic artist Francisco Mauricio among others. The also art critic had already a project with boys, girls and teenagers in La Molina, a neighborhood in Piura City uptown, where they were using the painting and sculpture as ways to generate resilience (although they have not pointed out so).

While they got prepared to celebrate two centuries of Ignacio Merino's birth, Piura's most representative painter and realism exponent, heavy rains started. It had to decide between supporting the homage or being realistic about the developing facts and their impacts, so they incorporated El Niño as the topic to print in the workshops in La Molina and other two locations in Catacaos and Chulucanas uptowns.

The result are the art pieces picturing this story, reflecting curiosity, surprise, fear, and hope. Fortunately, immediate response of the world has been solidarity.  It is hoped that because of this art, the response that never outbreaks to be the forgetness.

Images  Courtesy by Arte Para Todos.