Empowering Indigenous Youth in Mexican Communities

This project aims to strengthen meaningful bonds between local youth and their indigenous community culture, carrying out workshops to increase awareness and foster creative expression regarding fundamental community practices. During this period, the UMCO team facilitated the organization of creative workshops for students of the Middle School (Telesecundaria) of San Martín Huamelulpam, strengthened the collaboration with Kalamazoo College, Michigan, and completed an intensive state-wide workshop for indigenous youth.

During the month of March, the creative workshops held in San Martín Huamelulpam were designed and led by two Kalamazoo College students, who completed the Study Abroad/Civic Engagement program offered by UMCO. The Kalamazoo students developed a very original workshop to express community stories through clay stop motion. As they refined their proposal with guidance from UMCO facilitators, they re-designed the workshop to encompass the same ideas with plastiline and paper cut-outs instead of clay representations. They offered this creative medium to three different groups, which expressed three different community themes: the organization of the fiesta, the communal territory, and the origin of the community.

In this way 25 middle school students made videos with the characters, dialogues and backgrounds they had developed. They presented their videos in a public event, before members of community authorities, the museum committee, the school committee and the teachers. All attendees were very appreciative of the efforts of both the local and the Kalamazoo students, for using a new medium to engage with community narratives.

In May, the Center for International Programs of Kalamazoo College, Michigan, supported UMCO facilitators to visit the campus, to offer information about the Study Abroad/Civic Engagement program that is being carried out in Oaxaca. The faculty of the Spanish, Critical Ethnic Studies, and Art Departments were very receptive to learn about the opportunity for their students to contribute to this grassroots project of indigenous communities in Oaxaca. UMCO facilitators were able to reach out to students by holding an information session, visiting classrooms and offering a workshop through the Center for Civic Engagement.

During the months of May and June, UMCO facilitators carried out an intensive state-wide workshop for indigenous youth, with the participation of 7 communities. As in previous occassions, it began with two on-line sessions to introduce the themes of cultural change and the concept of comunalidad (a concept encompassing four pillars of community organization: communal government, communal territory, communal service and the fiesta). The in-person session of three days was carried out in San Miguel Tequixtepec, with the participation of 30 young people and 16 adults.  

During this workshop participants were able to carry out dialogue with 4 community elders, to learn about ceremonial speeches, or parangones, and parangoneros, or people recognized as being especially capable of articulating them. They learned about when these speeches are made (to ask for a woman’s hand in marriage, to ask someone to be a godfather/godmother, to pass on authority to new representatives, to honor the dead during a funeral) and the characteristics of the parangoneros (to be recognized as an ethical and moral person, to be aware of community principles, to have the sentiments that correspond to the situation and the ability to express them verbally). After these dialogues, the young people developed theatrical presentations of parangones spoken in different moments, and shared them through the program “Nuestra voz en los museos comunitarios” of the YouTube Channel of UMCO.

In summary, during this period 55 young people and 16 adults from 8 communities (San Martín Huamelulpam, San Miguel Tequixtepec, San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca, Santa Ana del Valle, Magdalena Jaltepec, Santa María Yucuhiti, Santo Domingo Yanhuitlán and San Pedro Tututepec) participated in workshops for young people to expand their knowledge and appreciation of their traditional way of life.