Sharing Nature Worldwide
2001 Online Journal
A Message from Gabriela Flores
Sharing Nature Mexico Country Coordinator
When I first saw the gardens at the SOS Aldeas Infantiles orphanage in Tijuana, I was revitalized by the green trees and flowering beds that surround the buildings. Watching the orphan kids reach out to apple trees and bite into the juicy fruit gave me a vision of hope. Situated in a heavily industrialized border area where garbage and erosion are part of everybody's daily landscape, the gardens are a true oasis. Many people had spent a goodly amount of time designing, planting, and caring for them, as well as caring for the kids who live there.
The
gardens were actually designed to be an outdoor classroom for the community,
but at the time of my visit, no educational programs were making use of
them. With the help of communities in the US and Mexico, we were able
to create modules for environmental education in different areas of the
gardens-an organic vegetable garden, a seed bank, a solar power demonstration,
a garbage recycling center, and a handmade paper workshop. We invited
groups from elementary schools and organized groups of community members
to visit the orphanage. We have become facilitators for ecological activities
as well as inspirational site visits.
Our major challenge is that people are generally so disconnected from nature that information about its value as a source of beauty and inspiration, health and nourishment seems very remote from the everyday realities of factory work. We needed something to help people make connections to the heart of nature, and that's when we came across Joseph's books.
We discovered that the Sharing Nature books had been translated into Spanish, and they provided a renewed creativity to spice up our educational program with fun activities and deep experiences. Attending the workshop at the Expanding Light retreat in northern California this summer was an empowering and bonding experience for our team. As soon as we returned, we redesigned our entire program to include activities from Joseph's books and workshop.
We were particularly excited about the Camera Game, which we encourage kids to do in the gardens, and which we follow up with our own version of Recipe for a Forest, which we call Recipe for a City Park. After "taking pictures," we ask the kids to imagine their ideal city park, including what it would contain and how it would look. They write down their ideas, then we make collages with natural objects found in the garden to illustrate their ideas. At the end of the school year, we will gather all the recipes and give them to the city, along with lots of petitions and ideas for a park designed by its direct beneficiaries, the kids.
We use the same technique to help community brainstorm their designs for their own community gardens. After a visit to the orphanage, they return home with an ideal recipe for their own green space that is alive in their hearts and minds.
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