By Laura Perez- Arce | Head of Communications
The Localize Mexico project was presented to the educational authorities in September 2014. 18 teachers of the UAQ (Autonomous University of Queretaro), the UTSJR (Technlogical University of San Juan del Rio, Jalpan Campus; the ENEQ (The Normal School of Queretaro State Jalpan Headquarters, as well as the USEBEQ staff. These institutions in turn organized a second presentation to twenty selected students. Six students completed the whole process of Localiza, all from the Queretaro State Normal School of Queretaro.
In October of that same year, Douglas Gayeton who founded the Lexicon of Sustainability came to the Sierra Gorda, to introduce the concept and carry out a hands on training in composing the photographs into dynamic pictures informing the viewer with the key terms and concepts that are artistically creative. The practice session helped explain the methodology and resolve questions and took place in one of the roadside restaurants along the Sierra Gorda Flavor Trail; Doña Mari lent her skills and unique location with a view over the steep Huamazontla slope.
We work with María José Olivares in the Localiza headquarters in Guadalajara (the Mexican branch of Lexicon of Sustainability) to apply the methodology locally, answer the doubts and technical support from the Lexicon resources available in Spanish. Lexicon and Sierra Gorda are formally collaborating towards an adapted version of the curriculum for the rural school systems where we work. Sierra Gorda boasts six graduates (some who paired up) of the first generation whose works included:
- Two works about organic gardens and vegetables in the Agua Fria community, Pinal de Amoles county.
- One about the local microenterprise, The Ecological House, in Acatitlan del Rio, Jalpan de Serra county.
- One about the local microenterprise run by women who transform local produce into 100% natural foodstuffs, in Concá, Arroyo Seco county seat.
The program included talks about sustainable food systems and soil regeneration taking place in Sierra Gorda Mexico and they made various fieldtrips to the ongoing projects to interview and continue researching how to display these terms through images and short texts.
Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda is preparing for the new school term in 2015 by working with the staff of the following institutions: UTSJR, EMSAD#3 in Concá, EMSAD Arroyo Seco, the CBTA and the University of the Ciudad del Maíz, in San Luis Potosí state.
This is a living project that gives youth the tools to learn how to identify and communicate the local best practices in healthy food and soil systems and sustainable rural livelihoods.
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