The War Against Peasant Farmers Heats Up in Honduras
“There is a war here in the Aguán,” says Juan, surveying the distant fields of African palm from the vantage point of his recently planted field of beans and corn. A young Honduran farmer, wearing a beaten cowboy hat and a bandana bearing the name “National Front for Popular Resistance,”…
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Popular Theater Takes on La Quesera Massacre in El Salvador
I came to El Salvador as a volunteer with Art Corps, an organization that places artists in residence with Central American communities. Art Corps’ mission is to share art as a tool to engage participation and raise awareness of social and environmental issues. Using theater to restore historic memory affirms…
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There is No Poverty in a Mother’s Heart
Women actors name their mothers, one by one, to initiate their performance of “¡Somos Mujeres, Somos Madres!” (We are Women, We are Mothers!), an original, collectively-developed theater production based on their personal and ancestral stories. At Somos Mayfair–a community-based organization located in the low-income, immigrant neighborhood of Mayfair in east…
Reclaiming Culture: ¡Que Viva la Posada!
Twelve immigrant women stand in a circle, holding hands, reflecting on why it is important to organize an annual Posada and Pastorela event in the Mayfair community of east San José, California. The women are members of Familias Unidas (United Families), which is dedicated to raising awareness and analysis of…
Building a Healthy Barrio in San Jose
In Mexico, I knew where my food came from. My parents and grandparents cultivated their own food or we ate food that was grown locally. In this country, fast and processed food is cheap, abundant, and addictive. Our eating habits changed completely.” So says Sandra M., community leader from the…
Pathways toward Wholeness: Calling in White Folks, Deep Time Journal;
White supremacy carries trauma and disconnection within its core. Trauma is caused by the deliberate exploitation and theft of the bodies, lands and labor of people of color. It is activated through the genocide of Indigenous peoples, slavery and extractive capitalism. Dehumanization is essential to this enterprise and cuts off…
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The Dreams of a Girl:
It has been said about social change, “If we can’t dream it, we can’t build it.”Some of our great world leaders have spoken about the power of dreams. The indigenous Guatemalan activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Rigoberta Menchu, once said: “What I treasure most in life is being able…
Why a Circle?
In a society with an education system based on the traditional “banking method,” (coined by Paulo Freire to describe a teacher depositing knowledge into the presumed empty minds of students), a simple transition to a circle in lieu of rows of desks proved a drastic paradigm shift. https://medium.com/@creativeaction/why-a-circle-ecf23750b7cb
Environmental Stewardship: What’s Empathy Got to do with it?
You might ask: what does empathy have to do with conservation and gender work? Our answer: Everything! https://www.creativeactioninstitute.org/post/environmental-stewardship-what-s-empathy-got-to-do-with-it
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Listen as if your Life Depends on It
Last May, ArtCorps was invited to facilitate ‘Rivers of Justice, Bridges of Love’, the 2015 Duquesne University Educational Leadership Symposium (DELS) that brought together academics, youth and community leaders in Pittsburgh to analyze issues of racial injustice and the Black Lives Matter movement. Rosa Gonzalez and I worked with the…
Reawakening BioCultural Heritage through Art
In the remote highlands of Guatemala, teachers and community members are learning new ways to recover ancient Maya K’iché knowledge. Art often gets sidelined in education and development approaches and is regarded as a luxury that only an elite few can pursue, especially when daily survival is a struggle. ArtCorps,…
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Photo credits: Creative Action Institute, Somos Mayfair