EducARTE | workshops/talleres | community outreach


El Centro Cultural fosters self-expression and promotes social awareness among Orange County residents. It fuses music, art, dance, discussion and international travel into a learning format that explores interactive artistic mediums as a tool for self-empowerment and social change. Participants develop critical thinking and communication skills by observing the social dynamics that affect their community, and record and reflect and present their discoveries with family, school, and community members to generate dialogue and action about urban issues. International travel enables leaders to engage in cross-cultural exchange, peer-facilitate and share strategies for capacity building and sustainability with youth from global communities.

Through the use of art, el Centro Cultural de Mexico seeks to provide activities for school age youth to examine their lives, family and the conditions of their community in order to develop deeper consciousness about the issues and learn what actions they might take to address them. El Centro will lead students toward social responsibility and purpose while using art as a form of documented narratives. Students will begin reversing negative trends in their lives and communities by fostering strong relationships with family, classmates and neighbors and staying active in the affairs of their school, communities and local government.

To this end, el Centro offers workshops to local schools and community organizations on the topics of education, culture, identity, and history:

• One Day Talleres (workshops): The instructional goal of an individual taller is knowledge acquisition and integration. At the end of an individual taller a learner will have grappled with a significant amount of new information and made sense of it. These One Day Talleres are designed to be completed in one class period, or can be done semi-independently at home, and will deal with significant cultural and historic events within the Mexican culture.

• Long-term Talleres: The goal the 6-8 week long “Taller” consists of extending and refining knowledge. After completing a long term taller, a learner will have analyzed a body of knowledge deeply and transformed it to demonstrate an understanding of the material by creating something that others can respond to.

SHORT TERM AND LONG TERM GOALS

To Develop Lifelong learning skills in all participants

To Develop Critical thinking and problem solving skills

Foster effective communicators

Give back to community through art

Develop technologically savvy individuals who know the basics of HTML, internet research and software skills.