MINGALAB

As part of the work at Minga Lab (grassroots and community organization strengthening program) since August 2018, the Visible Hands Corporation joined forces with the dance group Pacific Dance (from Tumaco, Nariño) to strengthen its artistic project.

Pacific Dance is a group of young tumaqueños who joined in 2000 to form an urban dance and art group that would take away youth from the violence of the municipality. In 2015 they made a first attempt to formalize themselves as an association, but due to the lack of formal documents, they failed to obtain registration. Taking into account the leadership of its 6 young creators, despite the above, the group has consolidated and there are currently around 200 young people who have been trained in different types of urban dances. The Visible Hands Corporation recognizes in Pacific Dance a hotbed of art and dance very important for the municipality, not only for the quality (still empirically acquired) but for the social work these young people perform recreating a different future for the most vulnerable in the municipality.

The accompaniment of the Corporation to the dance collective consisted of training in legal, accounting, administrative, professionalization, techniques, and strategies (organizational strengthening strategy in order to improve technical and administrative capacities that allow the organization to face the challenges of the community where they work). But also, from the artistic part itself: in the first half of 2019, Pacific Dance received the accompaniment of the teacher Rafael Palacios (National Dance Award and leader of the Sankofa group) to further qualify and project his artistic proposal.

As a result of these encounters and the accompaniment of Visible Hands, the Tumaco dance group today has an entrepreneurial model that guides it as a group towards the search for its self-sustainability, identified alternatives for its legal formation and carried out negotiations with the Ministry of Culture which happily bore fruit: in the last quarter of 2019, the ministry approved the proposal to make a creation by maestro Palacios intended for Pacific Dance: MAREA ALTA, a work that had its premiere on November 26, 2019 at the School of Music from Tumaco. The staging, with 16 artists on stage, tells us what is behind each applause, each trophy, each presentation in the life of a dancer? All in the midst of the difficulties typical of a territory surrounded by violence but which manages to recreate the reality and dreams of the Pacific.

In the line of work that we carry out (associated with the Transformation Ecosystems line and its MingaLab program), Visible Hands welcomed the group Plu con Pla (Plumuda with Plátano) to strengthen the musical project that was born in the Pearl of the Pacific. The ensemble is made up of 8 artists, who for almost 3 years have been venturing into the national and international musical field, the musical proposal is part of the fusion music or World Music style, since it is a style that is part of the musical tradition of Colombian South Pacific to meet other urban musical genres, such as hip hop, reggae, dancehall, among others. They sing to the territory, to the social, economic and political problems of their community, but also to joy, to love for life and resistance.

Most of the artists that make up the group have been working together since childhood within the Tumac South Pacific Folk School Foundation. In 2016 with the director's return to Tumaco, the fusion music project arose, initially as a form of exchange and exploration of knowledge between colleagues and friends, quickly consolidating as the Plu con Pla group.

The social work of the Tumac and Plu con Plá foundation consists mainly of the musical training of children and young people from the municipality of Tumaco, generally located in vulnerable neighborhoods and in the rural area of the municipality. Knowledge about traditional instruments and their interpretation is very little available, contrary to what would be expected, since this knowledge has been at risk of disappearance and few young people have acquired it, hence the importance of transmitting this information. in the community. Something that has defined Plu's musical work with Pla has been the commitment to music with a social sense, something that can be easily identified in the lyrics of our songs, which are directed at traditions, territory, and social problems that currently affect our community, carrying a message and reflection on the reality facing the peoples of the Pacific.

In alliance with the Open Society Foundations and the Embassy of the Netherlands, Visible Hands has promoted a visit to Bogotá. This experience allowed them to appear in a mini tour before a new audience, but also to experience a series of experiences associated with the professionalization of the musical work, which included entering recording studios to record new songs. For a week, the country's capital has been the scene of the premiere of a powerful musical proposal from Tumaco itself.

From there the fusion sounds landed thanks to the revelation group of the Petronio Álvarez Festival in 2017. In a long and intense week, the guys from Plu con Pla performed at places like Café Cinema (de Chapinero), Casa Quiebracanto, Bar Latino Power, Matik Matik, and the CREA Festival, in the Simón Bolívar Park. In the midst of this, they attended the press (visiting the studios of Radio Nacional de Colombia), attended dance and image classes (the latter, an experience with fashion designer and consultant Sulma Arizala) and perhaps the most satisfactory for the group: recording new songs in the studio, under the guidance of the musician and producer César López (musician, composer, activist and tutor of Visible Hands).

With the objective of promoting the participation of women in Science, Technology, and Innovation (CTeI) programs where they acquire knowledge and develop essential skills to reduce gender inequality gaps and facilitate their access to quality training, Visible Hands and Chocó Robotics School created the INNOVATION GIRL (IG) program dedicated to educating and empowering women in the city of Quibdó, strengthening competencies and skills through the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) methodology.

In 2019, the initiative celebrates its third edition. Incubating in girls and adolescents the interest in science and technology, as relevant issues to drive innovation, the empowerment of new leaders in the territory and through robotics they can provide solutions to existing problems in their environment.

In its first version, I.G. impacted the lives of 15 women in 3-hour days in which prototyping, and programming of electronic devices were carried out. Thanks to the success and good comments from the participants, it was decided to carry out a second version with an agenda of 8 sessions (20 hours) in which 20 women will participate, adding a leadership approach.

In the new version of Innovation Girls, whose motto is “Girls inspiring girls”, a strategy has been designed that allows, in addition to empowering participants, inspiring and connecting with women who excel in areas related to science, technology, and innovation. , leadership and a new component, Entrepreneurship, key to building a life project.

For this third experience, some thematic nuclei have been penalized such as: life project, social innovation, female empowerment, reflections on cyberbullying, Social leadership, prototype presentation, etc. Participants who satisfactorily meet the requirements of the program receive a certificate from the School of Robotics of Chocó and those who wish to extend their knowledge may participate in the next version of the program if it is carried out.

Among some gratifying experiences that the girls of the program have had is a trip to China, the visit to London to be part of the World Summit of Young Leaders 'One Young World' and the meeting 'We Exchange' in Paraguay (forum of entrepreneurs STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics - that generates encounters with mentors and experts from the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Under the initiative of the teacher Nidia Góngora, singer and guardian of the ancestral culture of the Colombian South Pacific, and current leader and main voice of the traditional music group Canalón de Timbiquí, a work was started between the Visible Hands Corporation and the hotbed of children and young people that are grouped under the name Canalón de Timbiquí School.

From the very beginning the School's musical project was supported by Visible Hands by rescuing its own values ​​that the corporation has defended in relation to the Pacific: its gastronomic wealth, its games and children's tours, mythical and legendary stories, traditional music and others. own expressions of culture. The work of accompaniment, support, and financing has allowed a generation of boys and girls from various parts of the Colombian Pacific to bond and grow up healthy in an environment of discipline, perseverance, study and dedication. The result of all this work has been seen in the recent passage of the group of children through the prestigious Teatro Colón in Bogotá to present their latest record work to the public in the capital: 'Din Din Din', Christmas carols in a Pacific key .

There are more than 30 children and adolescents who have staged a musical in which the particular story of the birth of the child Jesus is recreated, but this time on the banks of the river and the sea somewhere in the Colombian Pacific. ‘Din Dirín Din’ is the result of the intense work carried out by the talent pool that was born to ensure the generational replacement of the Canalón de Timbiquí group. There are 13 songs (lullabies and Christmas carols) that have been adapted and composed so that the nativity is celebrated with the sounds of the region.

In the words of Felipe Amú, who in his principles was part of the process as a student and is currently the director of the School: “This production represents a dream come true for the School, because when we listened and saw the records of Canalón's elders and celebrated His triumphs, at the time we dreamed of one day being able to have our own album and little by little this became a reality, recording Pacific Music ”.

This record work musically narrates the birth of the child God, the lullabies of the peoples and the arrival of the wise men or the feast of the epiphany through bundes, juas, lullabies and corridors. It includes arrangements of popular Christmas carols that have been heard from generation to generation in connection with the ancestral culture of our shore, making a call to preserve the traditions of the peoples of the Colombian southern Pacific.

The making of the album is the result of a process of several years and is possible thanks to the support of the Barrio La Unión Community Theater Studio, Willy García and the Yo Tengo Fe Foundation, Acción Fund, Ministry of Culture of Cali, Visible Hands Corporation, Ministry of Culture, and the Creative Economy Program of the Secretariat of Economic Development of the Mayor of Cali, in alliance with the International Organization for Migration, IOM and the United States Agency for Development, USAID.