Club: Friends of the River

Days after Hurricane María made landfall, the school community of Inocencio Cintrón Zayas in Barranca, Barranquitas, rehabilitated its school. The Manatí River, which borders the school, rose and entered the school, causing monumental damage. In a matter of days the community cleaned the school and rehabilitated its environments, began to welcome its students and provided food and water to its community.

One of those days of cleaning, colleagues from the Instituto Nueva Escuela (INE) and the Secretaría Auxiliar de Educación Montessori (SAEM) joined the brigades in Barranca. At the end of a day of work, one of the students, Ivan Berrios Rivera, went down to observe the river with Ana María. There they had a conversation about it. Ana asked: “Ivan, what are we going to do with the river?” To which Ivan wisely answered: “learn to live with him.”

At that moment Ana celebrated that Ivan is part of a good school and a strong community that educates him to see and love the river as his life companion. From this story, a concern was born that later transformed into the “Friends of the River” club.

The school is surrounded by high green mountains, next to which the river runs, a river that comes from the San Cristóbal Canyon in Barranquitas, and joins the Río Grande de Manatí. The river has been 'home' to many families who throughout the centuries have lived their lives in community next to this body of water that has given them food, life, and cohesion. The school is surrounded by families who have lived in that community for generations, who have been part of the construction and evolution of the school and know its history well.

Ivan, who today is a 15-year-old young man, a school graduate and a student at the Pablo Colón Berdecia Vocational School, started the Friends of the River club based on his concern about how to take care of it and how to learn to live with it to take care of it.

The circle of guides, assistants, faculty members, neighbors, relatives of Inocencio Cintron Zayas and organizations such as Para la Naturaleza listened carefully to the concerns of their students and joined their mission.

The guide Jessica Santiago of Elementary II accompanies this club which is made up of 47 students at this level, however the entire school participates in the initiative.

But why do Taller II students have so much interest in the river?

Elementary II, as it is known in the Montessori methodology, is equivalent to the fourth, fifth and sixth grades in traditional education and serves students ages 9 to 12.

Within the study curriculum, presentations are made about bodies of water such as the river, its ecosystem, the study of water, among other topics that made the students want to learn with the river that they have next to the school. This stage of development is one where cosmic education is applied, where the boy and girl are able to understand how all beings, living and inert, follow natural laws and, in addition to fulfilling their task, benefit others, creating a natural balance, a chain where everything is related and makes progress possible.

Hence the love and need to take care of this river ecosystem.

Club

The club is in its initial phase. Through meetings and activities, they communicate to the families of the community the desire to take care of the river, the existence of the club and how everyone can help. The river currently has trash, debris and pipe drains leading into it. Community awareness and integration is vital.

The students intend to study and put what they have learned at the service of their community. Put science at the service of the conservation of this ecosystem that is so important for its people. They have already begun with a series of guidelines for families and neighbors on how to channel the pipes, how to cultivate plants that help absorb septic water and retain the land. They have built signs that invite positive behaviors to take care of the river.

The Club, together with its guides, are working on the future publication of recurring newsletters with topics related to the river. They have begun research projects as part of their academic work on the imminent issue of erosion and the conservation of this body of water. The organization Para La Naturaleza will soon give them a workshop on plants that can help and then there will be a planting day around the river.

On February 13, the school community and the neighboring community celebrated the inauguration of the Friends of the River Club. The special guest was the singer-songwriter Hermes Croatto who shared with the students songs that celebrate the love for nature, the community and Puerto Rico. Boys and girls, assistants and guides, families... came together and sang in unison with Hermes.

The community of Barranca welcomed Hermes as a son, whom they met as a child when “his father came to the neighborhood to sing to our father who was already older and loved his songs,” shares Evelyn Ortiz Cintrón, granddaughter of community hero Inocencio Cintrón Zayas.

Jessica Santiago, guide of Taller 2, and Yoara Colón, school community transformation facilitator, celebrate “that the voices of the boys and girls have been heard, their desire to learn and to collaborate with their community and their country.