“Little Fridays” is an initiative that emerged from children’s need to make the most of the last Friday of each month—set aside for teachers’ pedagogical council meetings—by engaging in artistic, sports, culinary, and community-oriented activities.

In this edition, the skate workshop for children was held, whose objective was to introduce the participants to the basic notions of this discipline. They progressively developed activities. It began with basic exercises, such as getting on the skateboard and maintaining balance, and later progressed to more complex practices, including performing turns on a ramp. As a result, we could observe how those who participated developed basic proficiency in using the skateboard use and showed greater interest in practicing skate.

The Children's Lending Program is a collection of childcare and development items such as strollers, bicycles, early stimulation games, musical instruments, among others, available for free loan to neighborhood residents. It has become a space for free play and exchange among children, as well as their adult guardians. The collection has been built mostly by donated items and reopens every 15 days.

The Santa María la Ribera Children's Council is an ongoing program of work sessions with children between the ages of 5 and 13 to create a space for child participation. The group has focused on conducting neighborhood assessments, creating a network of local businesses committed to child protection, creating reports on safety in the neighborhood, as well as strengthening their voice as agents of change and decision-making in the place they inhabit. The long-term objective of this project is to achieve safe mobility, autonomy, and self-care among children.

The summer course Ecopunk Summer, aimed at teenagers between 13 and 17 years old, was held. Through walks within the neighborhood, it was proposed that attendees would find ways to rediscover their environment by imagining new ways of inhabiting the city integrated into the ecosystem. During that week, urban exploration exercises were carried out, as well as the use of editing tools for social media and the use of artificial intelligence to design urban architecture for a possible more sustainable future.

Participants: 45 girls and boys, residents of Santa María la Ribera

The summer course City Kids: exploring Milpa Alta was held, where girls and boys participated in artistic, cultural, planting, and food-related activities, all linked to the territory of Milpa Alta. Under the guidance of mediator Martha Garay, the participants explored this region through playful dynamics. During the course, they were accompanied by a craftswoman, an illustrator, and a writer from Milpa Alta, who shared their knowledge about traditions such as the Chinelos dance, the use of the loom, and the creation of pigments, among others. Additionally, the participants visited the exhibition Rains and Dry Spells. The Ancestral Vision of Time in Milpa Alta, where plastic artist Melissa Paredes led an artistic activity with the participating children.

The program “El Huertito” aims to recover and adapt green spaces within the facilities of preschools and kindergartens in the neighborhood. For the implementation of this project, during the month of April, we worked with the Elena Zapata kindergarten. The goal was to create living classrooms and learning gardens for the school community. For the first sessions of this program, the discovery of and approach to seeds was encouraged through games and stories, to then move on in a second stage to direct work with them involving germination, planting, and continuous care of the garden.