Harnessing Social Energy: Labs, Prototypes and Neighborhood Projects
The labs bring people together around a common cause, connecting promoters of ideas with collaborators who share the same concerns, but who have different know-how, experience and types of intelligence. It also provides locals with the specific knowledge they lack by inviting mentors who put their expertise to the service, not just of the upper echelons of the group and their projects, but for the community as a whole. The result is a living classroom based on problem solving, where just as much value is placed on the process as the final outcome. Participants are encouraged to focus their energy on interacting with people from very different backgrounds, tolerating their differences and learning as a group. Based on an economy whose currency is mutual trust and respect, participants are invited to come up with viable, negotiated solutions that can be Dates: April – September implemented in their community. The goal of these labs is to produce objects and subjects that are active in their personal space and the community, and that are capable of progressing in an atmosphere of cooperation, solidarity and tolerance that puts the common good above the individual. Harnessing Social Energy: Labs, Prototypes and Neighborhood Projects Started on January as a permanent strategy 43 neighbors attended in 2 programs This platform provides neighbors with a safe, mediated space with basic infrastructure where they can devise and experiment with solutions to the everyday problems of their community. The labs bring people together around a common cause, connecting promoters of ideas with collaborators who share the same concerns, but who have different know-how, experience and types of intelligence. It also provides locals with the specific knowledge they lack by inviting mentors who put their expertise to the service, not just of the upper echelons of the group and their projects, but for the community as a whole. The result is a living classroom based on problem solving, where just as much value is placed on the process as the final outcome. Participants are encouraged to focus their energy on interacting with people from very different backgrounds, tolerating their differences and learning as a group. Based on an economy whose currency is mutual trust and respect, participants are invited to come up with viable, negotiated solutions that can be implemented in their community. The goal of these labs is to produce objects and subjects that are active in their personal space and the community, and that are capable of progressing in an atmosphere of cooperation, solidarity and tolerance that puts the common good above the individual.
Stories and Flavors we Inhabit – The Road to a Neighbors’ Editorial Project
Dates: November 18, 2023
Coordinated by: Miguel Iwadare
Mediators: Mirelle Valero, David Hernández and Christian Rojas
Participants: 12 inhabitants of Santa Maria la Ribera
Format: in-person
Following encounters between neighbors in 2023, we launched an open invitation to inhabitants to create a narrative body of work that would make a joint editorial project by Casa Gallina and Miguel Iwadare viable; the project’s purpose is to delve into their concerns about the eating culture in Santa Maria la Ribera, their experiences and personal knowledge about diet and its visible varied dimensions in our community. During this encounter the neighbors themselves established a road map to harmonize they’re and the Casa Gallina team’s necessary steps for texts and field work.
Infant Products Lending Service
Date: permanent
Allies: Tribu Santa María Laboratories
Participants: 180 inhabitants of Santa Maria la Ribera (October 2022 to December 2023)
Format: in-person
The Infant Products Lending Service is a collection of objects for infant care and development, such as strollers, bicycles and early stimulation games, among others, available for loan to neighbors of Santa María la Ribera free of charge. It has consolidated as a place for exchange and free play among the girls and boys, as well as the mothers and fathers who attend. The collection has mainly been built from donated objects and opens regularly at fortnightly intervals.
Communal Rearing
Date: September to November, 2022
Coordinated by: Casa Gallina,
Allies: Tribu Santa María la Ribera
Facilitated by: María Nava, Patricia Covarrubias Fernández, Graciela Hess Carrillo, Martha Garay and Marion Fürnsinn.
Participants: 70 inhabitants of Santa María la Ribera
Format: in-person
A series of workshops that seek to promote learning strategies and mutual support among “primary caregivers”: mothers, fathers and teachers, among others. Six sessions were held on topícs such as: first aid for infants, positive child rearing, ludic learning strategies, raising awareness on the importance of self-care and breastfeeding. Finally, certain participants gathered to ponder the content of the educational programing that will provide continuity to this experience.
Presentation: Communal Child-rearing Project by Tribu Santa María
Date: July 30, 2022
Coordinated by: Casa Gallina
Ally: Tribu Santa María
Participants: 28 inhabitants of Santa María la Ribera
Format: in-person
Tribu Santa María consists of a group of women who, faced with the pandemic, got together to help each other care for their babies and themselves. They developed a project proposal on child-rearing, in collaboration with Casa Gallina, that includes a service to borrow and exchange baby items, as well as educational activities and gatherings. To implement it, a session was organized to present the project so participants could give their feedback and thus anchor it to the immediate locality.
Productive Chinampa: El Buen Campo
Date: June 18, 2022
Ally: El Buen Campo
Led by: Julio Mora
Participants: 19 girls, boys and parents from Santa María la Ribera
Format: in-person
El Buen Campo is a small business created by a pair of neighbors from Santa María la Ribera, that is devoted to safeguarding ancestral ways of planting in Xochimilco, through growing and selling vegetables. On Saturday June 18, Julio Mora offered a guided tour to girls and boys who were members of Casa Gallina’s Children's Council, for them to learn the process of planting on chinampas, along with their historical and social background.
First Meeting of Casa Gallina’s Children's Council
Date: June 9, 2022
Participants: 13 girls and boys from Santa María la Ribera
Format: in-person
During this session, boys and girls who frequent Casa Gallina’s activities and had been invited to form a Children's Council exchanged ideas on their concerns and interests regarding the community and themselves. They shared what they would like their neighborhood to be like and how they could achieve this. The aim in creating this Council is to provide a space where girls and boys can express themselves and decide on Casa Gallina’s programming for children.
Our School is also our Neighborhood: Prototype Laboratory
Dates: February – March
Coordinator: José Guerrero and the Casa Gallina team
Participants: 25 neighbors of Santa María la Ribera
This activity focused on an open call for members of the neighborhood community to design educational activities and/or infrastructure projects to run parallel to the classes taught at basic level in public schools. The call was open to anyone who had any idea with the potential to become a project or program to support teachers.
The program allowed four of the ideas proposed by the participants to become projects to be implemented in school clubs. Those who participated in this laboratory are in a process of articulation with school authorities and adjustments with teachers to attach their initiatives to the clubs within the curricular autonomy program in the 2019–2020 school cycle.
Creating Community: Brownfield Projects Lab
Dates: August – October
Facilitators: David Gómez, Valentina Sánchez, Montserrat Nuñez and David Hernández
Participants: 18 neighbors
This working laboratory called upon neighbors to propose projects to be implemented on communal land. The participants of these laboratories presented three open ideas for a couple of properties. The first one, on Peral Street, saw a disused surveillance booth adopted and activated by residents of the northern area of the neighborhood after negotiating with district authorities. The second, an abandoned property on the intersection of Sor Juana Street with Sabino Street, has been the long-time target of a group of several neighbors who wish present initiatives to adopt the property as a communal space.
