Giving Compass' Take:

• This Children & Nature Network post highlights Josefina Prieto, who has dedicated her time to Fundación Ilumina, a nonprofit organization in Chile working to promote early childhood opportunities in the environment since 2009. 

• How can donors support initiatives such as this one, in Latin America and elsewhere? How can we make sure that kids of all backgrounds have the chance to experience nature?

• Read more about attention retention theory and why nature play helps learning.

In 2009 in Santiago, Chile, we set off to make the dream a reality. Fundación Ilumina launched with the goal of promoting early childhood opportunities in nature. By 2011, to address the inequity of access to nature in Chile’s urban areas, we added an educational program based on outdoor learning and play, using Richard Louv’s “Last Child” as a source of academic studies and facts attesting to the importance of nature to a child’s development.

Encouraged by many people and countries, our goal has always been to improve Chile’s educational system (still 99% developed indoors, regardless of a child’s age) and to shift Chile’s culture towards nature. We aim to interweave our society with nature — right from birth — through joyous daily pedagogical experiences with nature at nursery schools as well as elementary schools.

Today we are proud to say that our program is in 64 nursery schools in economically deprived areas of Santiago. We are delighted that children at these schools have outdoor learning opportunities every day on site. It is absolutely amazing to be able to witness children transform in nature. Children who may start out with fear and hesitation at just touching soil eventually become worm handlers, seed sowers or mud kitchen chefs. For us, there is no greater joy than listening to a group of children enjoying songs, stories and music played with stones, sticks seated under the canopy of a tree, and afterward pretend they are butterflies, birds, ants, or worms.

Read the full article about early childhood access to nature by Josefina Prieto at Children & Nature Network.