Promoting Kickapoo heritage for kids in Mexico

Hello and happy summer to our dear Global Giving friends! Three months had passed since you hear from us. We had a busy and joyful spring and we like to share with you some information about our project. We participate with other institutions in the organization of a speech contest in native languages for indigenous children around Sonora named “Voces al viento”(voices to the wind). It was beautiful experience hear their messages. The children talked, in their own words, about their home towns, their cultural identity and expressed their concerns about the environment, among other things. We hope that this contest can be useful to preserve and disseminate our native languages and contribute to sensibilize the public about the values of our cultural heritage. We send you pictures of two moments: a group photo of children finalist with teachers, anthropologists and Lutisuc team members and a portrait of a beautiful little girl who came from her community in the Yaqui Valley to remind us about the importance of joint efforts to preserve our heritage. The children are doing their part, let’s do ours. The summer is here. The tohono kids of the sonoran desert painted a mural last November. The theme is the rain dance. In the same way that the desert waits for the rain in the summer, we are waiting for the donations of our gobal giving friends! Happy summer for you all!

Hello our dear friends of Global giving! We have many news to you. We still working hard in acheive our goal: the preservation of native languages as a means of strengthening cultural identity for the new indigenous generations here in Sonora, Mexico. As you know, in order to do so, we organize artistic stimulation workshops for indigenous children, and with the resulting material developed bilingual (and even trilingual) educational games for them. The Kikapoo Lottery and Memory Game, our proyect with you, is one of the results, and we are very hopeful that your generosity allow us to print it soon.

Meanwhile, we have to move on. According to our plans, last november, we organized a workshop for the people of Tamichopa for making traditional drums; it was originaly planned for the kikapoo men, however, for their interest, children also participate. Was a lot of fun! They play and learned to make a drum! and another artistic stimulation workshop was held; this time, with the Tohono Otham children of Quitovac, Sonora a small town few miles south of the border in the Sonora-Arizona Desert. The children draw and colored beatiful images that we will use to create a new game as a didactic material for the preservation and difussion of the Tohono Otham language.

As you can see, there’s a lot more to do. The magic of playing and learning at the same time it’s something that we, and we mean you an us, have to make it last. Thanks for your support.

We are very excited to keep working in collaboration with the Kikapú people of Tamichopa, Sonora, México for the recovery of their historical memories. As part of the project, several workshops have taken place in the new Community Center. In July, the women of the community received technical training along with organizational talks. Dolls were elaborated with variations from the original costume, activity that contributed, among other things, to the development of their creativity. It also prepared them for the next step: the confection of the typical costume for themselves and for their families, topic of the training program of September. Liliana, a young kikapoo woman, proudly presented it to the women. During summer vacations, we also gave the young people the chance of having a digital photography and computer workshop. We will present the results in the exhibit “Nosotros, los Kikapús en Sonora” (“We, the Kikapoo people in Sonora”), in the state photographic festival “Fotoseptiembre” in Hermosillo, capital city of the state of Sonora. Next fall, we have planned a workshop of traditional drums with the men of the community. For the children, we are hopefully awaiting the support of our Global Giving friends to print the didactic material that will allow them to “learn playing” about their cultural inheritance; it would be wonderful to be able to give them that gift. We hope to hear from you soon!