What Am I Doing Here?

I'm happy to report that I've finally visited one of the programs I plan to include in my research.  I could write about how it is that I hadn't yet been able to do that (which would include an exploration of culture/personality--I'm not sure how much of each of those is at play), but instead I'm going to write about the visit and some of what I already know about the program.  This is what I thought was so interesting that I built my research project around it and programs like it:

Faro de Oriente
"Faro" is an acronym for Fabrica de Artes & Oficios; "Oriente" means east in Spanish.  Thus, Faro de Oriente is a program in the eastern part of Mexico City.  I'll explain what the other words actually mean shortly.  However, faro also is a Spanish word in and of itself and it means "beacon," like a lighthouse beacon.  I'm relatively sure the double-meaning is intended.

Faro de Oriente is one of four similar programs located in far-flung, periferal, impoverished locations in Mexico City.  Two are in the southern parts within the boundaries of the Federal District (both in somewhat or very rural areas), the newest one is in the northeastern part of the District, and the original is in the east (oriente).  As subsequent Faros have been developed after Faro de Oriente, they have developed programming addressing the different needs and desires of the communities in which they are located, but they are all within a network and all are programs of the DF Secretary of Culture.  The purposes of the Faros are to increase the availability of cultural opportunities in the marginal outlying areas of DF, and to provide training in the production of arts (artes) and crafts (oficios) to populations who have few other educational or training opportunities and to provide the space for such work to be done (a fabrica is a factory or production facility).  Exactly what each Faro does, however, is highly influenced by the communities and community-building in each area.

The Visit
What my research project is about is juvenile delinquency/crime prevention within the context of various programs for youth and young adults in Mexico City.  I plan to look at six different programs/agencies, half of which are operated by the government of the DF and half of which are operated by non-profits.  A preliminary step in my research process is visiting each program/agency to observe operations and meet the people in charge who can agree to give me access.  I am necessarily reliant on my local contact to help make these visits happen. After plans for two visits failed to materialize, in some frustration, I recently attempted to make contacts to initiate visits on my own.  This effort did not produce positive results (cold-calling in Spanish was a bit of a disaster and almost everything that could go wrong with such an effort, did).

However, hope springs eternal.  My local contact mentioned another potential opportunity to visit Faro de Orient last week, right before he was leaving the country for several conferences in South America.  I got a text message Saturday morning to contact a friend and colleague of his who was taking another woman, who is a doctoral student from Switzerland, on a visit.  I was able to connect with Angeles and we arranged a meeting place outside a metro station for Sunday morning.

We finally found Tamara (the Swiss student) and her car.  It was decided that Jose  (Angeles' husband) would drive.  The visits ended up taking all day, as the distances between the programs were large, especially when considering the lack of any direct route between them, and the notoriously heavy, slow traffic.

While Jose, Angeles and I had waited for and tried to find Tamara, I got to know them a little bit.  Jose seemed very knowledgeable about the Faros.  I asked if he were also a social worker—no, he’s an architect and has designed many of the Faro buildings.  He was a great resource to meet, not to mention a really nice guy.  Angeles also was very helpful and Tamara gave me hope that I'll one day actually be able to speak Spanish much more fluently.

As we drove, going first to visit Faro de Oriente, Jose talked about the history of the Faros.  The Faro de Oriente is in the eastern part of DF in the Delegacion of Ixtapalapa.  ("Delegaciones" are subdivisions of the city, sort of like New York City's boroughs.)  The program was established during the administration of the first governor of DF from the PRD (the political party of the left).  Currently, Faro de Oriente provides workshops in the arts/crafts, such as metalworking, carpentry, ceramics, the making of alebrijes (more about these in a minute), sewing, various printing processes such as serigraphy, paper-making, and music, all for free, to children, youth and older adults in the surrounding community.   The workshops require pre-registration and there is always more demand than there is capacity in the workshops.  They run on a tri-mester basis, year round.

The Faro campus is surrounded by a fence but the gates were open wide on one side and we drove through them onto a concrete-covered open space.  Several other vehicles were parked facing the fence.  Right outside the gate was a truck selling snacks.  There are several buildings, including the most recent new construction--a theater that had its grand opening in August.  It’s a space that can be used in several different ways for performances of different types and sizes, either inside or outside with the building opened up as a large stage.  The main building is a two-story, multipurpose building.  It has areas devoted to the different modalities and offices.  Some of the areas are classrooms, but most of the building is more or less open. At one end of the top floor is a community comedor (dining room) where meals are served to people from the community through a program of a different department of the DF government.  There is also gallery space.  The building is a remodel of a building that was built by the local government but had been abandoned for something like eight years prior to Faro obtaining it.  Jose said that during the time the building was abandoned, the community used the land and building as a trash dump for everything including derelict/abandoned cars.  One of the first tasks to ready the site for the Faro was clean-up of all of the garbage and debris.  That activity alone was a community improvement.  The campus also has another large building that houses the actual work space for metalworking, carpentry, and the making of large alebrijes.  

This is an alebrije.  Essentially, alebrijes are sculptures of (usually) fantastical animals.  The original ones were carved from copal wood and painted, in a small town in Oaxaca.  These are quite large (as can be seen by comparing the dragon/dinosaur to the two small children being menaced) and made, I think, of papier mache over a wire frame.

Apparently there is an interest in environmental sustainability.  Rainwater is captured through fields of lava rock, stored in underground cisterns and used for the restrooms throughout the buildings.  The large workshop building is built with high windows on all four sides, to maximize the availability of natural light.  Small openings on the lower part of the building, and venting up high, help to naturally cool the building.  The cooling technology is used on the theater as well.

The outside of the main building serves as a canvas for large, colorful paintings.  The backside of the building has smaller panels of graffiti-like painting.  Jose discussed the large paintings as being products of workshops.  On one end of the building, the painting had a 2011 date.  I'm not sure whether the backside painting is also part of workshop art.  In front of the building was a LARGE sculpture, which looked like it was left from Dia de Muertos celebrations.  It was a figure with a skull covered with recycled CDs/DVDs (shiny!), with recycled video tape for hair.  Below on the ground was a guitar, covered with vinyl LPs.  Jose explained that most of the materials used are recycled.

Development of a Faro and its Programs

I hope to learn a lot more about this through my research because what I already have heard is very interesting.  When an area is chosen for the development of a Faro, community meetings are held and people from the community recruited to serve on various committee.  There would be a research committee charged with researching what are the greatest needs in the community.  For example, in one community, maybe the roads are in terrible shape and getting the roads fixed is identified as a critical need that the people would like to address.  A committee would then develop strategies for approaching the government to get the roads fixed.  Another committee would be charged with searching for and evaluating potential sites for the Faro.  Another committee would develop a proposal for the Faro, including a request for funding.  These processes take place over several years.  The process itself is social development, as the results also are social development projects.  Community members, including youth and young adults, are developed as community leaders and the community is improved in varied ways that are chosen by the community.

I had hoped to witness the community development firsthand, while it was going on.  I now realize that was somewhat unrealistic, in that the process necessarily takes a good bit of time--longer than the time I have available.  However, as it turns out, it was unrealistic for other reasons having to do with the current global financial crisis and the electoral cycle in Mexico City.  I'll have to settle for asking about the developmental process to see what I can glean from the stories.