As the Zapatista movement prepares to carry out a series of creative and energetic new initiatives, Schools for Chiapas is mobilizing to paint a mural on the women’s center building and at the playground of the new autonomous school and health center dedicated to the fallen Zapatista teacher Galeano in La Realidad, Chiapas, Mexico.
Volunteers from 12 countries will joyfully spend their Easter vacations painting with Schools for Chiapas in this rainforest Zapatista center which has been the site of increased military surveillance and continued paramilitary threats. (Click her for a Spanish language report from Fray Ba) At the same moment the Zapatistas have announced another round of The Little Zapatista School of Freedom in August and several gatherings in Chiapas for Mayday 2015.
As the reborn Sub commander Insurgent Galeano recently confirmed plans for, “The homage to the compañero Luis Villoro Toranzo and Zapatista teacher Galeano, on May 2, 2015, in the Caracol of Oventic, Chiapas, Mexico. In this homage, in addition to the Zapatista compañeras and compañeros bases of support, the following people have confirmed their participation: Juan Villoro Ruiz, Fernanda Navarro, Adolfo Gilly, Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, Don Mario Gonzalez Contreras, father of César Manuel Gonzalez Hernandez, one of the 46 missing from Ayotzinapa, and Doña Bertha Nava, mother of Julio Cesar Ramirez Nava, one of the 46 missing from Ayotzinapa; as well as family members of compañero teacher Galeano and Zapatista autonomous authorities of the 5 zones.”
“The kick-off of the seminar “Critical Thought Versus the Capitalist Hydra,” convoked by CIDECI-Unitierra and the EZLN’s Sixth Commission on May 3-9, 2015, in the mountains of the Mexican southeast…” (Original English version available here: http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2015/03/19/sobre-homenaje-y-seminario-el-supgaleano/)
The mural painting on and around the rebuilt autonomous school and health clinic jointly dedicated to Galeano and Sub commander Pedro will begin on Monday, March 30 and continue through April 11. The Zapatista community of La Realidad has built a new kitchen and will share locally grown food with the multinational participants in this huge art project. In addition to adding images of a number of indigenous women on second story walls the new elementary school, the Schools for Chiapas caravan will paint the playground side, the ends, and the front of a wooden building now housing a new Zapatista women’s collective store and kitchen. We are excited to be share food and cooking with the women of La Realidad.
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