SchoolsEstela RomeroDecember 02, 2019

"La Salud"

SchoolsEstela RomeroDecember 02, 2019

SCHOOL VISIT.-

We are now doing our last visits to the schools surrounding this high populated area in “El Rosario” Ejido (“County” could be the closest equivalent term for the concept of “Ejido”). Today “La Salud” Middle school is right up hill rather close to a forest entrance and very close to “Rio Grande” river, one of the main leaving routes to follow for Monarchs when the massive leaving back north, starts to take place in March. Way uphill to reach the school, one could see how the rudimentary agricultural life in the region is very close to the everyday life of local students. Once ending middle school, there will be the possibility for all of them to attend high school in the neighbouring location to which they will be able to reach by walking for even one hour at the most, which is still common in these areas for students to reach school, as long as they do not have to move on and they can still stay at home living with their families. Agriculture, cattle raising and in general back-yard animal raising practiced in the area is mostly for family consumption and very local commerce practices over the year and not prominent for mayor commercial purposes. Once these students end up high school level, many will choose to take over such responsibilites, others will go for a job in big cities, a low percentage will by all means look for the possibility to continue a professional career and many will indeed fulfill, since nowadays we have University level schools on engineering and social field careers in two of our closest cities at only 40 kilometers away from these small communities around Sanctuary “El Rosario” the farthest from this University level schools. It was really nice to see how these young students were interested in our topic on “treatened, endangered and extinct local animal and plant species in our local ecosystem”. Though a little shy to express opinions and less expontaneous than elementary school children, —typical for this age of our teens—, their silence and attention and concern was evident. “We think that, as commented, immediate local small actions at home, at school and in our location, are indeed the way to start; to protect and conserve”, —they said absolutely convinced showing a serious assumption of our responsibility as a society—. Working on their letters doing important reflections on our still existing local species and classifying them into each risk category, playing the “web of life” game, and the most exciting, going out to their beatiful green surrounding to make field observations, was really exciting for them! They received their Symbolic Ambassador Monarchs saying: “Tell our counterparts in the north that we appreciate very much that they are interested in our lives, in our culture and our challenges as a society and that this make us feel part of a very important activity to fight for our own future”, —they ended—.