Staff
Change
ArtCorps welcomes Jane
Martha Oslin to the Beverly Program Manager position
and bids farewell to Suzanne Jenkins. Stay tuned
to meet Marta in our next newsletter.
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This
Month
When ArtCorps artists first arrive in their
new host communities and host non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), it is vital that they
take the time to get to know the local people
and understand local issues in order to organize
appropriate projects.
This
month, we see how artist Maria de los Angeles
Lagos Lagos is planting the seeds for measurable
change through art for social action in her
work with the Association of Water Committees
in the Southern Sector of Pico Bonito National
Park (AJAASSPIB), an ArtCorps partner organization
in Honduras.
 Maria
de los Angeles Lagos Lagos,
affectionately known as Magu in the small villages
where she works, is a visual artist from Chile.
She undertook her bachelor's studies in
fine arts with a focus on sculpture and painting
at the University of Playa Ancha in Valparaiso.
Prior to ArtCorps, she has led a variety of
workshops in educational camps and low-income
communities focusing on the arts, recycling,
and living in harmony with the natural environment.
AJAASSPIB is
a local organization that brings together water
management committees within the Pico Bonito
National Park in Honduras in order to promote
the protection, good use and management of clean
water sources, with the support of Ecologic
Development Fund.
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ArtCorps
has new email addresses!
See below and please
update your records.
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Artist
and Youth Break New Ground Together
Written by intern
Angela Wu in collaboration with artist Maria
de los Angeles Lagos Lagos
Chorrera, Honduras is a small village of 140
homes located in Pico Bonito National Park in
the Olanchito municipality of the Yoro state
in Honduras. In terms of its geography, it is
a micro-watershed or natural drainage basin
for two adjoining rivers. As stewards of the
watershed, the people of Chorrera through AJAASSPIB,
are working to conserve their public resource
by creating processes that protect their water
source.
In partnership with AJAASSPIB, ArtCorps artist
Maria de los Angeles Lagos Lagos (affectionately
known as Magu in the villages where she works)
is supporting community-led management and conservation
of drinking water, and other sustainable living
initiatives such as trash composting and recycling.
Her efforts are focused in Chorrera, where she
lives, although she is planning and has already
begun activities in other villages. Through
this collaborative endeavor with ArtCorps, AJAASSPIB
hopes to empower and motivate the youth to take
action and spread awareness about what the community
can do to protect its environment and water
sources.
During her first three months as an ArtCorps
volunteer, Magu has worked hard to understand
AJAASSPIB's work and goals as well as the
local culture and challenges from a community
perspective. With this in mind, she has gained
the trust of the youth through a series of workshops
and activities, using graffic representation
and verbal expression to explore how they perceive
their environment and the arts. The value placed
on all ideas and opinions has created a non-judgmental
space, where youth can practice public speaking
and leadership roles.
 In
addition to helping the youth develop self-esteem
and strengthening teamwork and dialogue, Magu
gained many insights into the community issues
most relevant to them and how she might use
art to express those concerns and look for viable
solutions. Through this process, she discovered
strengths such as solidarity, the water source,
and a positive social environment for youth
in Chorrera. In the same way, she found negatives
such as trash on the streets, open-air water
waste, and the lack of opportunities for entertainment
and engaging in constructive activities.
Magu believes it was important to first determine
the youth's most pressing concerns before
launching big projects. This allowed her to
understand the youth's motivations and to
plan appropriate projects that appeal to them.
She has begun to bridge the gap between discussion
and change through the process of developing
short projects that show small but noticeable
impacts on the community. These include education
about the mission and goals of AJAASSPIB, making
recycling a daily practice, a nature walk through
the central basin that allowed the youth to
see and internalize the resource that they are
helping to protect, and a community clean-up
day where they picked up trash and encouraged
everyone to clean up their front lawns.
Throughout the course of her projects Magu has
seen greater respect and self-esteem emerge
among participants. She notes the importance
of "participation, that all views are respected,
and that the group tries to resolve any conflict
by themselves, before asking her to mediate."
During the coming months, Magu will guide the
youth toward two more projects: a mural and/or
a theater piece. Her ultimate objective is to
raise environmental awareness or in her own
words: "make the youth see things that
can be improved and become aware that attitudes
need to be changed before concentrating those
positive attitudes into concrete achievements."
Using art, Magu hopes to create a space where
youth can express themselves without fear, and
also demonstrate how they can create art that
can influence the greater community. One idea
is to invent an "ecological clown"
that teaches through laughter and self-identification.
Another is to paint umbrellas or other accessories
with green messages which the youth can share
with family and friends to teach them about
sustainable and healthy lifestyles.
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New
Contact Information
ArtCorps has changed its email, and we kindly
ask you to update your address books. Here are
the new email addresses for the ArtCorps team:
Clare Dowd
clare.dowd@artcorp.org
Marta Oslin
marta.oslin@artcorp.org
Rafael Ayala
rafael.ayala@artcorp.org
Blanca Estela Garcia
blanca.garcia@artcorp.org
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