A Dream Machine that produces joy

[Marlou]

For the principle for Action:

“Si on crée l’espace pour l’expresssion, les capacites des personnes vont éclore”

 

The dream machine that produces happiness

“Are the children in the Village de Tamarinier poor?” asks my ten year old daughter Chiara when I call her after a day of visiting this Mauritian village. I hesitate. Yes, at the first sight of it her peers here are much less off. Their families struggle with drug use, alcohol, finances, violence, housing and many more.  But are they poor?

The visit with the children is noisy, hectic, incoherent. Our little friends have difficulty staying on their seats….

My friends Celicia and Annick are showing the beautiful example of when we find a common language, we can create the space for a conversation. Very gently and playful they are leading us all through a full CLCprocess.

The strongest part of it is the dream machine that produces…. ‘Happiness!’ With our own bodies and voices Célicia makes us build the machine. We all make a repetitive gesture. We all make a repetitive sound. And together we are a Dream Machine. A lot of laughter is there to testify that this machine can produce happiness indeed.

Our new friends don’t find it difficult to define next what we need to add in the machine so that happiness is produced. ‘Smiles’ ‘hope’ ‘friendship’ ‘imagination’ ‘patience’ ‘love’ they shout.

The self-assessment is replaced wi

th the simple question: and do we have all those ingredients here?….as the children were hesitant to some of them, we as visitors were happy to tell them the strengths that we saw!

Poor?  No – probably not that. Rich they are, rich with a dream and rich with all the ingredients within their reach to make next steps towards their dream. 

[Célicia Theys]

Merci Marlou for sharing... Love re-reading, HUGE smile on my face <3 !
Thanks Jan for your comment, too, always there to appreciate :) ...
The joy was definitely there Nath :) :) :) !

[Jan Somers]

Great to learn about finding the common language  - Célicia is a great talent in doing that.

[Nathalie Legros]

thanks Marlou, for sharing! the joy is tangible in your words, in the smiling faces, in the simplicity of the question...