Technology and the Arts

In March the Asociacion ANDAR and a non-profit called the Children's Empowerment Network collaborated to provide a group of students from Cedeño with their first opportunity to use digital photography as a mode of artistic expression.

Cedeño is a remote fishing village with few opportunities for students to gain exposure to modern technology or the arts. To use a computer, for example, a student needs to travel 20 minutes to the next town – an effort that requires money for the bus and the hourly rate the small Internet cafe charges. The photography course allowed participants to handle a digital camera, learn how to operate it, explore its features, and print out the final product after making adjustments on a computer. This was a new experience for each of them. Having the license to create something without fear that it will be shunned or unappreciated can be an exhilarating experience for students who have limited contact with the arts. And using a new technology to accomplish this feat is truly an empowering experience for students who know the benefit of technology even if they are often unable to access it with ease.

Several articles in this newsletter are written by the two volunteers from CEN who facilitated the workshop. Also included is an insert with some of the pictures the participants took which they feel best captured the wonderful spirit of their community. The students and facilitators deserve to be applauded for their effort and creativity!

Children's Empowerment Network (CEN)
by Deborah Plavin and Sara Dingledy

"CEN provided the participants with a creative framework within which they explored their identity, community and role as global citizens."

With only seven weeks in Honduras, we spent little time in the capital of Tegucigalpa and, with Sarah Amman as our guide, on Sunday we made our way to the heat of the south, and to Cedeño. Sara described Cedeño best by saying it is a town located at the end of a long, dusty road that winds through fields of sugar cane and cantaloupe, salt marshes, and sleepy towns of single story buildings advertising Coca-cola and Pepsi. The road dramatically ends at the ocean, which emerges suddenly from behind two hotels, perched on 30 foot stilts that jut out over the water. From the road, the beach looks small and crowded, but as soon as one turns the corner and passes the hotel, it becomes an endless stretch of sand and sea grass. To the north and south lie the mountains of Nicaragua and El Salvador.

Life here is not black and white; it is the many shades of green of the vegetation, and the brilliant blue of the sky and sea. And, just as the colors seem vibrant and joyful, so do the people. Yes, there is 70% poverty in Honduras, and this reality is certainly present in Cedeño; however, the notion of "not having" does not underscore life here. There is much that people do have and are grateful for, including tight families, church, harmony with nature, and a strong community.

The following day – Monday, March 20 – we began our work with our first informative meeting with the 20 jovenes (youth) chosen to participate in the workshop. They sat quietly on the cement stoop of the new CEDIF building as we walked up. They were all on time, atypical for Latin America, where most activities start at least a half hour late. I asked (through Sarah's help with translation) how many of them had ever used a digital camera? And they all just stared at us and no hands went up. Then I asked how many had used a camera – non-digital? And only one lonely hand was raised.

It was hard to believe that only one person in the bunch of 20 had touched a camera before this workshop, but their lack of experience had little effect that first day when they were given the opportunity to take a picture of the person sitting next to them. Each joven was anxious to take the camera into their hands, press the silver button and capture the smiling face of their friend sitting next to them. Through the following six weeks their enthusiasm and ability in taking pictures only grew.

Throughout the duration of the workshop we experienced great attendance and enthusiasm from the participants. CEN provided the participants with a creative framework within which they explored their identity, community and role as global citizens. The youth were exposed to the communicative power of photography and learned the basics of photographic composition and computer management of images. Their photography skills developed significantly, and many of them have developed critical thinking skills as they both captured and investigated pictures to represent and discern perspective, message and meaning.

What We Learned
by Deborah Plavin and Sara Dingledy

• The kids in Cedeño are thrilled to get their hands on any technology they can. Many of them showed up at our home night after night. During this time they helped us print out pictures and organize the cameras. Some practiced their typing, some played with the photo software and made photo collages, and others gathered together to watch DVDs. Overall, the space, the cameras, and the computers combined to create a social outlet for many of the youth participants and a place to learn new skills and hobbies.
• The kids of Cedeño know that they live in a beautiful place. They love the beach and the quiet paths that connect the homes and community buildings. They seem to sense the safety of their immediate surroundings, and are a bit apprehensive of what exists outside of it.
• Few of the kids from Cedeño have traveled far from their town. There is a sense of isolation here, and it is clear that they are learning about the lives of children in other countries for the first time.
• At the beginning of the workshops the kids seemed to be quite challenged by some of the activities of the workshops, for example when we asked the participants to make connections between images and ideas, or when we challenged them to capture symbolic images that represent ideas and complex thoughts. They were not familiar with these types of assignments and found the process difficult and frustrating at times. It seemed to us that much of what they are asked to do in school involved memorization or "recreation", and that there was limited opportunity for original creation. Throughout the duration of the workshop the students' ability to think critically and creatively improved, showing us the importance of artistic and creative education.

Life at the CEDIF
by Sarah Amman

On Monday, February 20, 2006 classes in the CEDIF began again with an inauguration of classes in the new CEDIF building. Here the 44 students, their family, the educadoras, members of the committee and people from the office in Tegucigalpa gathered together to start the new year. There were words of welcome from Santa Melendez, director of Asociacion ANDAR, words of advice from some of last year's mothers, songs, poems, food and candy-filled piñatas for the kids. This joyous occasion was a great start to what has been a great year.

We still hold classes in the rented temporary CEDIF building, since the new one needs a few more finishing touches before it is ready for the students. Since the enrollment increased this year, it was decided to function with two classes. First from 8:00 until 10:00 the students from pre-school come and then from 10:30 until noon the kindergarten students come. Dividing the group up into two different classes made sense because there was just not the room for all of the students at one time.

The only time that all the students are together was Wednesday s when we have a field trip to the "library". This day the students meet at the CEDIF building, play for a little bit and then we walk the palm lined path through the Coquera to the community library. Here the students get in groups with the educadoras to read stories and after snack time they are able to run around more in the ample area in front of the library.

On Monday, March 20 we celebrated Father's Day at the CEDIF. We did not have classes this day. Instead, in the afternoon the students came with their fathers and/or mothers. The mothers were in charge of planning the day. The day was a lot of fun. To start the students sang some songs, the mothers passed out food and finally to end the day there was a piñata. The difference was how the piñata was attacked – instead of the traditional way of blindfolding the child, the father/mother was blindfolded and held their child as he or she swung at the spider-man piñata. There were a lot of laughs as fathers were misdirected from the crowd! To end the day, each student gave their father a special card that they had made the week before in classes.

The last two weeks, the class schedule has changed a little bit. Due to various challenges, the large number of students that we started the year with started to dwindle and it was proposed by some of the mothers in one of our meetings, to have just one class instead of two. So May 8 all of the students came to the CEDIF at the same time. There was some concern that the four educadoras who work in the CEDIF and I would be overwhelmed with all of the students at one time, but things have gone smoothly during these past weeks. In fact our attendance has been better and the kids are more interactive and excited about classes now.

Announcing Eli Soren Roth Eli was born on June 23 to Leslie and Ben Roth, volunteers in 2005.

When told of his birth, friends in Cedeño boasted that Eli was "hecho en Honduras"!

Cedeño Photo Exhibit in NYC

The Giving Planet Program is a program of the Children's Empowerment Network (CEN), which was established for the purpose of developing a network of programs to facilitate intercultural engagement among youth worldwide through creative expression and dialogue. We seek to empower young people to become conscious agents of peace with an understanding of their shared responsibility for creating a peaceful and sustainable global civilization. CEN conducted a five-week digital photography workshop in Cedeño this past March. The resulting photography will be displayed in an exhibit in New York City and Boston. The New York City exhibit will be held on August 30th and August 31st from 6pm to 9pm at 83 Spring Street. The date and location of the Boston exhibit has yet to be confirmed. For more information contact Marisa Pizzuto, Executive Director of CEN (Marisa_Piz@comcast.net).

ANDAR Photo Exhibit