One Saturday we go out to know more details of such a noble task, to tell you about it later. It was earlier than 9:00am and there was a calm in the neighborhood that made us hesitate about finding the house of Marta Pedroso Villalón, Roberto's widow. Finally, we found it. In the garage Marta had everything ready for the workshop and, the children, not idle, began arriving.
THE BEGINNINGS
Pedroso Villalón says: "Everything started when we lived in the other house, near here. Roberto used to paint in a very small space of the garage and to keep the air streaming, he kept the doors open. Children from the school nearby passed by and stared at him, and some of them started to ask him for lessons, but he disagreed.
When we moved in, and he realized such a space we had here, he proposed me to create a workshop for the neighborhood's children. Del Risco went to the Culture Center Joaquín de Agüero looking for advice, since it was the corresponding one according to our geographical location, but he achieved nothing. Then he went to the Culture Center Ignacio Agramonte, and there, María Julia, who was the director, supported us in everything. Since that moment we are part of this institution.
Then the project began, opened ever since to every child who wants to paint. We had children from Tagarro, Garrido, La Esperanza, Paco Borrero, Victoria de Girón, San Francisco and downtown neighborhoods. My husband and the art instructor taught the lessons and I handled the little ones, the enrollment and the snack.
What we do, called the attention of the Cuban Writers and Artists Organization (UNEAC) in this province, and they allowed us to take a course in Project Management, which permitted us to make ours official, which is purely communal, because here everything is done by ourselves and for the children.
Roberto wanted to create a Cultural Center, with workshops for the different artistic manifestations, but he died in 2011. The children were worried about the continuity of the project and I told Yoandris, the current art instructor: If you help me, we can keep it functioning".
TO DRAW THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Yoandri and Marta showed a great firmness by giving the opportunity to the 18 children that belong to the plastic arts' project nowadays and to the other 10 who belong to the dance project, to do something out of watching television and playing outdoors every Saturday.
Keila Montero Arredondo and Ariel Alejandro González love drawing, that is why they do not miss a Saturday, the latter, although he wants to be a scientist, he is being attending already 5 years to the workshop. Diana Lis Dopico is very serious about it, she lives in Guernica neighborhood and helped by her grandparents, she travels to Lenin neighborhood. Melany Elisa Meneces Aguilera is one of the project's founders and though she takes distance sometimes to practice other manifestations, she always returns because she likes it and finds peace on it.
Even though none of the painter apprentices have entered the Vicentina de la Torre Academy of Art, Maria is proud of many of the achievements her students have reached, like the mention in an international contest of the World Food Programme, the awards in the contests "Los colores de mi ciudad" and "Donde crece la palma" and their expositions at Alejo Carpentier Art Gallery.
How do you obtained the materials, like tempera, paintbrush, paper....?, I asked: "You have to improvise, recently, the Cultural Center gave us, by the first time ever, some resources and it happened not because they did not want to but because they did not have them. Parents help us as well, and with the rest of the money we collect for the snack we buy some things".
It is good that nobody gave up on this project, because this neighborhood, despites being distant geographically, needs people like them, who like helping their neighbors. Here, away from downtown, there is no almost any cultural institution, only a library that opens, who knows when?, and a small video room.
Translated by Ariel Ballester (Student of Languages)
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