Lauren Cannell works with Indigenous children in the town of Puntamayo in Colombia. Photo: Supplied.
A Canberra woman who ran art workshops to teach children in Colombia their rights will pilot her program in the ACT later this year.
Lauren Cannell, 42, wants to commercialise the not-for-profit Educación Diversa she founded in 2020, so as many children as possible across the world can benefit from a unique form of learning.
“I got married in Colombia and moved there to live, where I started to do social work with adolescents in displaced paramilitary areas,” Ms Cannell said.
“We made progress while there, but I learnt some terrible things happened to the kids after I returned to live in Australia.
“We did a bunch of research on the school system on why kids were making such bad decisions, primarily because of their difficult life situations and lack of education. We found the gaps in the education system were around not teaching them about reproductive health, peaceful conflict resolution, child rights and sexual health.”
So Ms Cannell went back to Colombia to conduct free art-based workshops on these subjects for the children with whom she used to work.
“A lot of the kids were internal refugees, so we used art due to impact of trauma on the brain,” she said.
“We found that using things like drawing, rap music and poetry made learning far more accessible, particularly for children with low levels of literacy.”
Educación Diversa gradually began to expand.
“I had some kids reach out to me from Bolivia who’d seen our page on Facebook. They said they hadn’t had any schooling for the past year due to COVID and wanted to learn,” Ms Cannell said
“So we created a series of videos for them. We grew our service by using a digital platform for our lessons.”
Lauren (far right) with her husband Jose (next to her) and children she taught in Bucaramanga, a town in Colombia. Photo: Supplied.
Ms Cannell, a mother of two who grew up in Wanniassa, returned to Canberra again to work in areas such as sexual health, family planning and combatting gender-based violence.
Her community efforts locally and abroad saw her win the ACT Chief Minister Inclusion award in 2023 and be nominated as ACT Woman of the Year in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
She will now pilot her art-based workshops at Maribyrnong Primary School in Kaleen and at a child care centre in North Canberra at the start of Term 4. The lessons will focus on teaching children the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“Every child needs to learn about their rights, about anti-discrimination, their right to not to have to work, to have a home, the right to food etc,” she said.
“If the pilot goes well, we hope to roll out the program in schools across the ACT.”
The money raised will help fund projects in underdeveloped countries.
“The more our charity grows, the more I can have an impact in other countries. Next year, we’re planning to go on the road to teach in Colombia.
“It’s all about trying to make the world safer for kids. At the end of the day, they’re our changemakers.”
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