October, 2015

Playa Del Carmen, Mexico

Invasores: new initiative

Objective
The objective of this initiative within the Invasores community is to extend the work that was started
during the 1 week summer school event that took place in July, 2015 in order to develop a long-term
program to provide educational lessons and resources to the children within this community.

Summary
In the beginning of October this year the
Mexico GVI project staff and volunteers
started what is hoped to be a long-term
project within the community of Invasores
that aims to provide the children with a variety of educational workshops covering
several topics (English, literacy, movement
and health). To date GVI have successfully
completed 4 workshops in Invasores and
have every hope to continue to do so in
the future. This was an extension of the
very successful 1 week summer school
event that took place in July, 2015.
Fig. 1 Visiting Invasores with our partner, Cocos Animal Welfare
Report
The Invasores community is an area with extreme poverty, containing people from some states within
the south of Mexico who have built their homes using the waste materials from a nearby industrial
dump site (2). This community is illegally based on federal land and has an association with limited
access to educational resources and other social issues including over population of animals, such as
cats and dogs. This issue has been address
by our current partner Cocos Animal Welfare (1).
In partnership with Cocos (1), GVI ran a 1
week summer school within Invasores that
included a variety of educational sessions
covering several topics (English, literacy,
movement and health). This 1 week shortterm project was such a great success that
it was always the aim to continue this work
within a more long-term project (2).

Fig. 2 The first welcome to the initiative

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On Thursday 8th October, GVI project staff

and volunteers facilitated the first weekly
educational workshop to children within

this community, covering similar topics previously carried out in the 1 week summer school session.
To date, they have successfully completed 4 workshops in Invasores and have plans to continue to do
on a regular basis.
The current structure of these workshops includes starting at 9am in the morning and begins with a
welcome for the children, followed by a pre-prepared workshop planned by either staff or volunteers
and finishes with a short reflection and goodbye reviewing the days activities and the childrens response to the lesson content and anything additional they would like to be covered in future lessons.
Hand washing resources and drinking water are also provided for the children if required.
Upon completion of this workshop, a
report is completed that includes information on the number and age of the
children, the planned educational activity, a summary on what was successful
and what can be improved on in regards
to the planning for forthcoming lessons.
In addition to the above, due to a new
partnership with Capoeira Cativeiro
Playa del Carmen (3, 4), we have incorporated a Capoeria class within our
timetable for this initiative that is
planned and lead by our contact Omar
and supported by GVI staff and volunteers. The basis of this marital arts,
Fig. 3 First introduction to Capoeira
which originated in Brazil, is the intolerance of discrimination of others based on their ethnicity, social status or any other defining attributes
that could cause prejudice. It allows anyone to train and incorporates dance, movement, percussion
and non-contact martial arts into its activities. This activity is hoped to be the foundation of a new
sports GVI Mexico Community project.
References:
1.
2.
3.
4.

http://cocosanimalwelfare.com/
The July 2015 GVI Playa Del Carmen Monthly Achievement Report
https://www.princeton.edu/~capoeira/ln_abt.html
http://cativeirocapoeira.mex.tl/photo_131622_Sin-Nombre.html

If you would like to know more about the community projects in Playa del Carmen, check out:
http://www.gvi.co.uk/volunteer-in-mexico/

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