Busy Month

Our month has been so busy we haven't had time to blog about it!

Before we leave for a week long story mapping tour of the Rio Santiago watershed, I wanted to post a quick update.  

With the help of our video workshop participants and some amazing organizations, we pulled off two community cinemas, one in the public Parque Revolución in Guadalajara and the other in the Central Plaza of El Salto.  The students of Iteso also organized their own cinema at the university.  The cinemas were a complete success and we are so thankful for all the support and help we received.  It was wonderful to see the workshop participants and their families so proud of the videos created.

Then we headed to Mexico City to participate in Agua, Ríos y Pueblos, a worldwide conference and photo exposition currently traveling through Mexico.  I participated in a round table discussion on the Río Santiago along with Indrah and her family.  Indrah is one of the participants of our workshops, so we were really excited she could make it to present.  We had prepared a twelve minute video called "Arriving at Consciousness" that synthesized the youth's videos and interviews we conducted.

Finally, Arthur and I traveled south to Chiapas and Oaxaca for a bit of work and a lot of exploring and relaxing.  We spent some time with the fabulous organization Otros Mundos in San Cristobal, Chiapas.  They run a popular education water and energy school for rural communities.  It was inspiring to catch a glimpse of their projects and work.

Here we are, two weeks left in Guadalajara, preparing for a tour of the watershed that begins tomorrow.  Not only will we get some incredible documentary footage, but we'll create a multimedia map of the watershed with a stellar group of IMDEC collaborators.  Stay tuned, we hope to be posting regularly on our experiences.

First stop, Lake Chapala, where the Río Santiago begins.  

As a side note: Our "Digital Storytelling for Social Change" workshop with Get on the Bus Productions was recently accepted for the US Social Forum at the end of June.  We will announce more of the details once we have them, but we hope to see many of  you there!