The Friends Centre
Friends of Cabrera, Inc. and Faro de Cabrera, SRL have, together, occupied an education community centre in Cabrera. This two story building with bright, airy spaces, a completely enclosed property and almost 1 acre of green space of which opens directly to access the community baseball field and elementary public school makes us very excited about the potential here.
The work has just begun, would you like to help? We hope to build a basketball court, are in need of outdoor night lighting and to create pathways and play spaces that are not muddy. Perhaps organic gardening is your interest and you can help us build a compost and equip a growing learning center? Or maybe you are inspired to develop a children’s playground? Any talent or resource you can share becomes an important part of the Friend’s Center for the enjoyment of the community.
Please let us know what talent or resource you can share by reaching out to contact@friendsofcabrera.org
Past Friends Centre and the El Futuro Programs
EcoArte
Acting locally with its art and ecologically focused community outreach projects, Eco-Arte advances through its third consecutive year implementing and creating a necessary and vital link for remedying the absence of public awareness on environmental issues in the town of Cabrera.
Promoting partnership with formal and non formal educational services, Eco-Arte is grateful to the “Friend Center, Inc” and the “Friends of Cabrera Foundation” for their support throughout its 2012-2013 school year. The collaboration of the Friends of Cabrera Foundation made possible for the development of Eco-Arte’s community inclusive initiative. From the beginning of the 2012-2013 school year, the participation of 48 students from local public schools into the Eco-Arte educational program at the Friends Center, catapulted the program into another level.
The Arts and Environmental Education Program Eco-Arte, is pleased to report some highlights of its 2012-2013 schools year. The highly motivated and enthusiastic public school students rendered an enormous amount of work. These students work efficiently alongside the school students of Faro de Cabrera school students. All the students were encourage to share as they discussed concepts and ideas that would help to improve the condition of the contaminated “Río Tío Marcos” as well as other environmental issues that confront our community of Cabrera.
From one project to the next, they created much art from recycled plastics celebrating holydays and carnival, with X Mass Trees, Wreaths and Carnival Masks, amongs others created from plastic bottles. They rendered paintings, drawings and sculptures, which depicted and explored the various eco systems, as well as worked on projects focused on water issues, such as the looming water crisis in our planet and the contamination of rivers and oceans.
Transferring what they learned in the classroom, the students empowered themselves making direct contact with the local river community as they participated in the pro-active “Amigos del Río Tío Marcos” initiative. With its goal of achieving environmental awareness and possible solutions for the river Tío Marcos and its neighbours, the initiative reached much success as the Eco-Arte students completed a demographic census of the two hundred and sixteen families and neighbours of the contaminated Río Tío Marcos.
With this population data, the students of Eco-Arte developed an eyewitness account of the contamination and brutal manner in which garbage is dealt with around their local river, and well aware that the only true treatment to environmental degradation is education, the students questioned and interviewed addressing and helping to awake the river community to the critical necessity for the cleaning of the river Tío Marcos.
The census data is instrumental to the Eco-Arte Program as it moves forward raising awareness, organizing and engaging these river communities with “Amigos del Río Tío Marcos” pro-active projects which can help restore the health of the river.
I could not end this annual report without mentioning our inspiring Earth Day, a collaborative celebration with the beautiful “EduMusicando” green music concert and the Master Musician Tadeo De Marco. The student’s angelic voices as they sang to Mother Earth added to the magic of the day. The planting of all the trees & many seeds and the collaboration of the Medio Ambiente was hard warming and inauguration of our little Eco-Playhouse made of some 10,000 plastic bottles was pure joy. Not to mention all the great food, great people and contributions which made a winner of an Earth Day celebrating at the “Friends Center”?
Ultimately ending our 2012-2013 school year with the annual Eco-Arte Exhibition at the Municipal Building of Cabrera with yet one more unforgettable “Edo Musicando” concert was the perfect encore to end the school year.
EduMUSIcando
“When a child writes songs and sing about human values, they will stay forever in your working memory, passing them to their community and future generations.” (Program Director – Tadeu De Marco)
This educational musical program begins with instructions and practice to develop a basic understanding of guitar, compositions and percussion using recycled materials. Themes for song composition are developed during the program through a variety of topic discussions amongst learners.
In 2012-13 children of the El Faro Academic Program, with the help of the program director, wrote and composed songs on social issues that were important to them. Together they created – Cero Violencia, a Rap dedicated to zero tolerance for violence, Educacion, dedicated to the importance of education and Limpia Ciudad, dedicated to a clean Cabrera.
Afternoon Programs at The Friends Centre
Our more advance students helping the younger students to read.