Help Artists w/disABILITY Fight Animal Extinction

There are many stories and videos around the world showing the renewing effect the pandemic has had on wildlife. At Familias Especiales (FE) the artists who work for the saving of animals in danger of extinction are hoping that will happen in Nicaragua, but they have no proof of this yet.   As of March 25 these artists have been sheltering in place.  They however have kept painting out of their homes with the little material that they had stored up before leaving the foundation facilities. The latest project before closing was doing protective face masks depicting the animals.

The decision was made by the foundation to close as Nicaragua started having cases of Covid19.  FE works with people who are vulnerable and could not envision doing anything else even though still at this time in May the government of Nicaragua has mostly ignored the pandemic and have not order any social distancing or self-protection for their citizens and the country leads in the percentage of deaths and cases ratio in Central America.  This is a sad reality but one that the artists have to live with and come through so they can continue this project. The projected return is June 1.  

As one of the artists said. “We are just like the animals in danger of extinction, fighting for our lives  with this virus”.  When the program does re open they hope to find new arts and crafts to depict the struggle and the beauty of the animals in danger of extinction.  Before the group goes back to work there are construction plans to improve their working conditions and to create more space for more artists to join their ranks and a silk screen project in order to have more ways to produce their activist art.

The hope is to continue with the art contest depicting the animals in danger of extinction, we are not sure about the fair but the contest will be workable.  This year they are hoping to put into place a new category of poetry to help save the animals, one that includes poetry in sign language. One artist put it this way as she said in sign language, “Things will be different but we will continue to struggle for these animals.  They are important to us all.”

Families Especial wants to thank everyone for their support of this project and to say directly we are not going away.  Maybe we had to close to protect our health but we are not extinct and we don’t want any of these animals to continue to lose members because of lost habitats and other reasons. These beautiful animals mean a lot to the planet.   When they re-open they still plan a trip to hear about programs at the Managua zoo which is the center for work with the animals in danger of extinction.  All is not lost just because we are still sheltering in place, in fact we believe that we have saved a lot by sheltering in place, so we will continue to look to see how this affects our animal population.  Even if the number of people doing social distancing and sheltering in place is not large right now it is having a calming effect.