Nature Inspired Wisdom
“I am like an ant, I am like a bird. I am neither unique nor better or more valuable than any other part of nature. We are all important.”
How youth in Cuba are incorporating arts and the environment
Over the past several weeks, we talked to a lot of young people who are organizing and/or participating in community projects that specifically use the arts to stimulate environmental education and awareness. Our team of nine youth researches for the Recrear-CYEN participatory project all agreed that the use of art mediums encourage problem solving and […]
SONGS THAT REPRESENT CUBAN YOUTH!
Recrear sat down with 8 Cuban youth leaders and discussed the power and importance of music for them. Each participant chose one song and explained to us why they believe it represents Cuban youth. Here is what they told us
Transforming a community garbage dump into something extraordinary!
Maria Silvia and her family have transformed a community garbage dump in Havana into a a piece of extremely fertile land where a variety of native trees and shrubs now grow freely and provide compost for future generations of plants.
The power of growing collective knowledge from Cuban youth
The Recrear-CYEN participatory research project is being done by, not for, local youth, meaning that they constantly influence and direct the entire research process
Meet La Mucura
As South Americans we live in complex contexts that have led us to search for new paths of social change. During this search we have discovered the great potential that lies in cultural expressions to create new possibilities, to reconstruct what has been broken, to unite and to recognize diversity. This is the conviction […]
Real Change
Liliet told us that she believes in ‘carpe diem’, in living life to the fullest. She explained that everything that she does, she does it to create ‘cambio real’, ‘real change’.
10 Cuban Moments
She thought it was crazy that an orange could travel all the way from Morocco and end up on her plate. Roberto just laughed and said, “No what’s crazy is that oranges can travel and we can’t.”
Appreciating Local Knowledge
During my work with a local NGO in Nicaragua I was asked to give a workshop about basic grains. The organization I am working with has been striving to diversify the green cover (the stuff you grow in between crops to increase oil fertility) used by farmers in the countryside. The main beans we were […]
Meet Roydes
I see him as a Batman type; he is everywhere and manages different lives. Roydes spends about half of his time with his mom and great-grandmother and the rest of the time with his dad, stepmother and stepsister. While searching for our Recrear headquarters in Cuba, I have been staying with Roydes’ dad. There everyone […]
