Desarrollo Creativo
Vientos Culturales

Almost 10 years ago, a very special house was built in the state of Chiapas. This house was designed as a place for the youth of Tuxtla Gutierrez to explore their creative potential and extend their education, by engaging them in the arts of the region. Since 1996, this house has become an artistic home to more than 5,000 children and young people, giving them the tools and skills necessary to become productive citizens in their community.

Targeting the neediest residents of Chiapas in their most formative years, the Desarrollo Creativo (Creative Development) program of Vientos Culturales (Cultural Winds) offers participating youth daily access to free arts workshops. Utilizing the house built by members of the community with traditional regional materials, the program also offers public performances and exhibitions that attract some 10,000 people from the area. Each year, the house offers more than 300 workshops in the visual and performing arts, including drawing and painting, handicrafts, papier-mache, linoleum engraving, clay modeling, collage, photography with homemade cameras, theater and puppetry, and juggling and acrobatics.

In addition to the activities in the house, the program offers weekly mobile workshops in three of Tuxtla Gutiérrez's most marginal communities. Carried out on the streets and in parks, these workshops serve homeless or abandoned children and local juvenile detention centers. The four-month-long workshops include roundtable discussions organized around a central theme and conclude with an exhibit or cultural event that involves the entire community.

Public performances and exhibitions are at the core of Vientos Culturales. Exhibitions, theater performances, puppet shows, and percussion groups provide young participants with the opportunity to showcase their work. Vientos Culturales sponsors an annual cultural festival honoring the "Day of the Dead" traditions and a theater tour to 10 rural communities in Chiapas. Through these outreach activities, the children feel a sense of cultural pride and connectedness that gives them a vision of their future. Through the fundraising, volunteer, publication, research, and documentation activities that sustain the program, Vientos Culturales also employs the talents of a broad range of adults in the region, focusing their efforts on the hope and promise of the next generation.