The central activity was two series of workshops
that we did in 14 villages in the Rio Dulce area. The overall goal of
the workshops was to train parents, teachers and children in gender
equality and the importance of girls' education. In planning the
workshops, we focused on using the visual and physical arts to
demonstrate the complex and controversial topics we were trying to
teach.
The concept of gender equality is a sensitive one
in almost every culture. Approaching gender through theater is key
because it helps people physically conceive abstract concepts and
therefore understand them more personally.
The theme of the second series of workshops was
"Gender and the Mayan Worldview". The goal of the workshop
was to use Mayan concepts to teach the students why we need equal
participation of boys and girls in the classroom. As always, we began
the workshops with theater games to focus the group and encourage the
boys and girls to cooperate and be creative.
I also helped develop a program called "Young
Promoters", which trained girls in 17 different communities in
leadership skills, and how to increase their self-esteem. These girls
will serve as examples for other young girls and will also help the
villages to achieve a gender balance that is vital to their economic,
physical and cultural survival.
During my stay I also led trainings in popular
theater techniques, participatory education, and planning and
organizing events. I also worked with each worker each time they had to
plan a workshop or talk.
My worldview has opened through this experience.
The more I learn, the more I want to know. I want to see and observe
more cultures in order to better understand my own culture.
I have refined what I do. I am not only an artist
anymore or maybe I am more of an artist. I call my work "community
development in the arts". By opening what I mean by 'art', I have
not lost art but set it free from my cultural expectations.
Thank you so much for your support - both of my
work and of work in community development through the arts in general.
I find there are few people who really understand the ways in which the
arts can help develop communities, especially extremely disadvantaged
communities like those found in many Central American countries.
Art is not just for the privileged. As the wise
founders of the Bread and Puppet Show said, "Art is Bread",
meaning that with integrated group work, knowledge of present and
ancestral connections, spiritual energy and forward creative thinking,
communities will have the strength to find whatever physical resources
they need.
