Photo ©
Zutut´Ha
The CAAOZ; Centro de Agroecología, Artes y Oficios Zutut´Ha, or just Zutut´ Ha (Center of Agriculture, Arts, and Careers Zutut´Ha) have organized magnificent festivals in the Sotuta community, a Mayan town in the center of Yucatán, Mexico. Their art festival revolved around celebrating life and taking care of the planet.
The goal of this festival was to create a space that enabled local participants to build a plan for sustainable living that is environmentally friendly and still meets the needs of the community. Many people from inside and outside of Mexico, including the base team of CAAOZ (Zutut’Ha), came to support the mission of conservation! This was the second year for the “LU´UM PUKSI ´IK ´AL”, (Mayan for the heart of the land) festival. It included the workshops of art and environmental education. This time the workshops centered on bird conservation. There were more than eleven workshops held during the two weeks of the festival. During the festival, everyone also picked up garbage in some of the town’s streets.
Most of their participants were children in the town of Sotuta. The children loved the workshops! The workshops included drawing three community murals, dances, theatre performances, a photography exhibition, an artist’s gallery, a musical video, and making wooden bird mobiles. All of the participants observed birds during the festival. More than 50 different species of birds were seen in the town! Barbara Mackinnon and her Sal a Pajarear (Go Birding) team came to give a very interesting talk about the importance of bird observation in a community. Before the festival many children enjoyed playing with slingshots, shooting rocks and other projectiles at the birds they saw. After doing the festival activities the children learned to appreciate the birds and instead of shooting at them they now observe them and draw them.
Everyone had a lot of fun celebrating with the children! We thank the families and friends who supported the festival and made it so successful! We appreciate all the volunteers and collaborators who gave their time to work at the festival. Thanks to the program Sal a Pajarear (Go Birding) for donating materials and to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who lent their support through the Celebrate Urban Birds mini-grants.
To learn more about the activities in the Yucatan Peninsula, click here!
To watch the music video click the video below!