By Sarah Fisher | Administrative Director
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
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