Our Project in Mexico
True growth out of poverty involves inspiring creativity alongside helping facilitate sustainable living. Everyone knows how important it is that communities have basic amenities like decent living conditions, access to water, power and good useable roads. Within the day-to-day struggle of trying to accomplish these things, Cultural activity understandably sometimes gets overlooked. Art and Culture should never however be neglected until after the physical infrastructure needs of a community are met. Art and Cultural activity is an integral part of the solution to sustaining communities. The arts are a direct expression of what makes us human, and we cannot be truly human without them.
In the Summer of 2010 we visited a charity in Mexico called Armonía. This charity believes in sustaining indigenous culture in Mexico, by providing education to children from deprived areas. Armonia was founded in 1897 in one of the poorest communities in Mexico City, the Jalapa ravine, a violent and impoverished neighborhood to the west of the city. Armonia now has three community centers in urban and suburban settings, as well as working with native students in the mountains of the Sierra Norte in the south of the country.
We also spent time with Alejandro Del Valle who is a classical guitarist. We spent a week with him recording some original material for a collaboration project. He has since been over to the UK to play a concert and will be returning again soon for further performances in 2011. SoundThread will be going out again in 2011 to Mexico to continue its work with Armonía, but also we hope to record and produce with Sonex the group from the video below.