club balam a collaboration between Na Bolom , Chiapas and the Lower Eastside Girls Club , New York
The organization is dedicated to providing a place where girls 8-18 can learn, grow, have fun, and develop confidence in themselves and their ability to make a difference in the world. By delivering strong and innovative arts, athletic, cultural, life-skills and career oriented programming, we provide girls with the vision to plan - and the tools to build - their future.
¿Who are we?
Club Balam is a collaboration between the Cultural Association Na Bolom and Lower Eastside Girls Club of New York City. The project seeks to reproduce the program, started 10 years ago, in one of the poorest, marginalized and multi racial neighborhoods of Manhattan . A group of mothers, artists, teachers, scientists, athletes, businesswomen and activists got together to teach skills to girls in the area. Today some 300 girls participate each year and the project is constructing new premises. The Cultural Association Na Bolom, on the other hand, has a 55-year-old history with the mission of serving the community through environmental protection, conserving and divulging the cultural patrimony of Chiapas , and also creating programs that safeguard and support indigenous groups.
Our mission
The association between the Lower Eastside Girls Club y Na Bolom will be directed towards the most marginalized sector of the population of San Cristobal de las Casas irrespective of whether participants come from traditional city neighborhoods or from the new urban groups of indigenous that have been displaced from their original communities and removed from their culture and surroundings.
In the Jaguar Garden , across from the Na Bolom Guest House-Museum, a center for art and vocational training is to be created where girls can take workshops that will give them integral artistic and vocational skills.
- The long-term goal contemplates creating space in rural indigenous communities. Na Bolom already has four cultural houses in the Lacandon Rainforest.
- The Exchange program between the girls of the different club will continue.
- Each workshop will have a specific objective to fulfill: in confectionery the girls will learn in the first stage to distinguish the different fruits produced in the region, to identify different fruit trees, production, and quality control in preserves, pectin production, canning, labeling and marketing.
- In Digital Photography the girls will learn in the first stage documenting and valuing their daily lives: they will begin learning how to use a digital camera, to take photos, to download them into a computer, select the best images, and make digital albums, projections and presentations. In the printing section they will identify different formats, sizes, papers, printing techniques and manipulation of images for product designing for marketing, such as postcards, calendars, agendas, and portfolios.
- The products will be sold in the Na Bolom store and other places in San Cristobal and profits will be converted into incentives for the participants.
- Each workshop will be for four months and will be divided into beginners (I), intermediates (II) and advanced (III).
Vision
The indigenous communities that reside in San Cristobal have been subjected to strong social and economic pressures in which women have occupied the last degraded, discriminated and marginalized rank. Yet the importance of women was always present in the spirit of our founders, Frans Blom and Gertrude Duby. Trudy's life was an example for women, representing, within a constant struggle, strength and power to overcome social conditions while preserving cultural and ecological surroundings.
Club Na Balam believes that by providing girls with tools to confront discrimination, their abilities and self esteem will be fortified, as they continue on Trudy's trail, self empowering themselves while acquiring improved social, economic and occupational opportunities in order to generate change in their communities. They will come to value the importance of women, the strength of their voice and labor, and in the end, foment a new society that is more equal, participative and active.
Values
The values Club Na Balam promotes are:
Fortitude
Self esteem
Commitment to nature and humanity
Generosity
Solidarity
Effort
