Mariposa Center For Girls

Dear friends,

This April 22^nd, the Mariposa DR Foundation hosted an Ecological Fair to celebrate Earth Day. During the event, the newest generation of environmental activists in Cabarete, the Mariposa girls, shared with their families and the community all the different ways Mariposa goes green everyday!

The event featured a musical concert, dance recital and a recycled fashion show. The Musical Group presented original songs with lyrics that inspire us to protect our precious natural resources, and las percusionistas, our percussion group, showed off their upcycled drums, which are re-purposed water storage containers. Rosanna, a Mariposa mother whose daughter Jafreisy has been in the Musical Group for over five years, shared during the concert that “El Agua Vale Más Del Oro” is one of her favorite Mariposa songs. She said, “I love to sing this song because it is the truth! Just like the words say, water is worth more than gold. Without water, we can’t live.” 

In this same spirit of water preservation, the dance group presented a contemporary dance piece about the element of water. Mariposas from the art class proved that green fashion is in vogue with their ocean-inspired costumes and masks all made from recycled elements, such as cereal boxes, toilet paper rolls and plastic bottles caps! 

At the Mariposa Center for Girls, we are now composting all organic materials from our kitchen, as well as materials such as paper towel rolls and cardboard boxes to create rich soil for our flourishing garden. On Earth Day, guests toured the Mariposa permaculture garden and learned about composting. The Mariposas led informational sessions to show each step in the composting process so that visitors could educate themselves on composting at home. Each Mariposa family was also given a seedling plant to take home and plant in their backyard garden!

A group of the older Mariposas also led a workshop on how to use an old t-shirt to make a re-usable grocery bag, a skill which they learned from indigenous woman, Colleen Cooley of the Navajo Nation during her visit to the Mariposa Center last month. We were so inspired to see something old transform into something new! The Mariposa girls hope that their mothers will now use these t-shirt bags when they visit the grocery store or local markets to reduce their use of plastic bags.

The Mariposas may wear pink, but where their Mother Earth is concerned they say, Go Green! 

Your continued support enables the Mariposa activists to spread sustainable solutions for protecting the environment, starting right in their own backyard! Together, we are empowering the world’s most powerful force for change!

With gratitude,

The girls, families, staff and volunteers at The Mariposa DR Foundation

Dear Friends,

This December, all of the Mariposa girls had the opportunity to showcase their numerous and varied talents at our end-of-year celebration. Each age group chose a different activity to show off all that they had learned throughout the semester. The show had a great turnout with many members of the community, including the girls’ families and friends, in attendance. It was an exciting day at the Mariposa Center for Girls!

The show began by awarding the “Miss Values” ribbons to the girls that exemplified December’s values of activism and fighting for your rights. Nominated by their peers and teachers, Mariposa girls from each age group proudly accepted their awards.

The 7 and 8-year-old Mariposa girls had been working very hard on basic literacy skills since September, when they did not know how to recognize any letters. They stunned the audience by singing and dancing to the whole alphabet! When asked about what she learned after participating in her group’s first Mariposa event, Dahiana, age 7, shared, “To be in the show, you have to always work together and practice a lot! We did a good job to show everyone that they would love to be part of this beautiful group.”

Event attendees were also able to enjoy several dance recitals, and seeing the multi-talented Mariposas put on an energetic and dynamic dance recital is always a crowd favorite. This was followed by a comical adaptation of Julia Alvarez’s Tia Lola stories, which the 12 and 13-year-olds have been reading all semester long. Our girls did a magnificent job playing the spunky characters of Tia Lola, the kooky Dominican aunt, and her American nieces and nephews, whom she comes to visit in the United States. The audience couldn’t stop laughing at this show!

We also enjoyed excellent presentations from our science classes, who have been studying the local waterways and ecosystems. Groups from the middle school aged Mariposas presented on aquatic species found locally with their detailed posters. Others acted out skits to help raise consciousness about the negative effects of trash pollution. The Mariposas are hopeful that through their educational campaigns at Mariposa and in local schools, their fellow Cabarete citizens will take action to preserve the environment!

Lastly, the oldest Mariposa girls shared spoken word poems that they had created in workshops with Dominican-American poet Liz Acevedo. They highlighted themes of personal identity, culture, and empowerment. None of this would have been possible without you generous support of the Mariposa Center for Girls. Thank you!

With gratitude,

The girls, families, staff and volunteers at The Mariposa DR Foundation

Links:

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• Find Mariposas publications here