la maraña QUARTERLY REPORT
Dashboard
All hands on deck...
Q3 was a busy quarter full of workshops, brigades, certifications, premieres and relocations. Projects in the Participatory Design Lab took off with Imaginary Workshops in Yabucoa and San Lorenzo. In response to the passage of Tropical Storm Ernesto, we organized support brigades for agricultural projects in our Food Sovereignty Fund. We also welcomed our first cohort of community leaders as part of our Community Project Management Certification. After years of meticulous production we released our first feature length documentary, Desde Adentro, with two very special screenings. Finally, we have a new office! Come visit us at 62 Calle del Pilar in the heart of Río Piedras.
Frente al Mar 1
Eugenio María de Hostos
Elementary School in Yabucoa was closed down in 2017, after Hurricane María. This quarter we held two co-design workshops with Guayanés al Rescate, dreaming up possibilities for each of the school’s five buildings including a multipurpose space, a kitchen and a library to service of the community.
Eugenio María de Hostos Frente al Mar Guayanés, Yabucoa 1
In San Lorenzo, design work began in La Tiendita for Centro de Apoyo Sustentable y de Autogestión (C.A.S.A.). Together we measured the space and determined the shop’s most pressing needs, designing convertible and multifunctional furniture for what will be an important distribution center and meeting place for small agricultural producers in the area.
Tiendita San Lorenzo 3 22
Finca Agronat 3
As part of the support we offer to 17 agricultural projects from our Food Sovereignty Fund, we returned to San Lorenzo for a work brigade at Finca Agronat, where we helped weed and detassel a abundant crop of recao. We also harvested yautías.
Finca Agronat San Lorenzo 3
Nueva Cosecha
In Lajas we organized another brigade for Finca Nueva Cosecha, planting of heliconias, ginger and sugarcane, harvesting blackberries and acerolas, and sharing a delicious lunch with avocados right from the farm.
In Río Piedras we had our first Community Project Management Certification, where we certified five community leaders in the co-design tools and methodologies of La Cartuchera.
We closed Q3 in style celebrating the premiere of our very first feature length documentary. In Carolina we joined leaders of Imaginación Post-María’s participating communities, who saw themselves on screen for the first time in an intimate screening at La Conde (former Carlos Conde Marín School). We also presented the piece in Mayagüez as part of the official selection of the 15th Puerto Rico Film Fest.
Celebrating ten years of participatory design...
La Maraña was co-founded in 2014 with the mission of promoting imagination and participatory design as tools to foster the sustainable development of our communities. Since then we have collaborated with more than twenty communities throughout Puerto Rico. We want to celebrate La Maraña’s ten year anniversary alongside our marañosa community. That is why this Friday, October 25 at 7:00pm we will have a public screening of Desde Adentro at the headquarters of the Centro para Puerto Rico Foundation in Río Piedras. It will be a night to share and remember the most endearing moments of our journey together. Looking to see you there!