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 creation of an exhibition showcasing the reflections of the previous three state-wide workshops, and subsequently mounted the same exhibition at the Community Museum of San Miguel Tequixtepec.

The exhibition included five drawings and poems of the rituals to honor and protect the communal territory (workshop in San Martín Huamelulpam, November 2023),  five dioramas representing the ritual practices in which native languages play a fundamental role (workshop in Santiago Matatlán, February 2024); and a series of 20 poems together with a tree symbolizing communal roots and leaves, representing the “parangones,” or ritual speeches for special ceremonial occasions (San Miguel Tequixtepec, June 2024). These elements were complemented with photographs and the promotional posters of each workshop.

Young people and adults of the community museum committees of Santa María Yucuhiti, Magdalena Jaltepec and Santa Ana del Valle worked together to mount the exhibition. The youth of these three communities reviewed products and videos of the workshops in order to write the texts of the exhibition.

The exhibition was opened at the Children’s Museum of Oaxaca, in the city of Oaxaca, on September 7, during the celebration of the Day of the Community Museum. Eighty community representatives and youth of nine community museums participated in the opening, in which young people explained the different themes presented. At the end, everyone present was invited to add their reflections about the exhibition to the community tree.

The agreement is that this exhibition will travel and be presented in the different communities that have participated in the workshops. During this period, it traveled to San Miguel Tequixtepec, where it was mounted and opened as part of the celebration of the anniversary of the community museum, on September 27.  

Athough not all the young people were present in the mounting and opening of the exhibition at these two facilities, the creative products represented the work of 96 participants. The exhibition will subsequently travel to several communities in the following months.