For a while, garbage has been one of Casco Antiguo´s main challenges. The lack of education in the local community, along with the few resources of the City´s garbage department has been a negative combination.

During the last 10 years, Casco Antiguo has slowly gone through a revitalization process that has brought new people into the mix. This year, having a small critical mass of new residents, Casco Antiguo saw the birth of a community NGO called AVACA (the Casco Antiguo Friends and Residents Association, in Spanish) which has started to tackle the most important issues, garbage being in the top three.

This Sunday, the first public event of AVACA took place at Casco Antiguo. It was burning hot, but a cheerful crowd made it to the parking lot of the National Theatre, grabbed their tools and attacked the nearby beaches.

More…..

This has been an intense week for international piano star Danilo Perez and his wife and music therapist Patricia Perez. Fundación Danilo Perez has not only launched the next Panama Jazz Festival 2010, but also announced their program Music For Change… and received an award from the Smithsonian Institute in Washington for all the work he´s been doing in Panama with children.  He was also appointed artistic director at the Global Institute of Jazz of Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA. Danilo and Patricia are all about positive energy.

Their passion is simple and deep: to raise the level of music education in Panama and transform through it the lives of children at social risk. The jazz festival is only a platform to achieve this goal, but what a platform! Last year, close to 20,000 people enjoyed the festival. About 650 students went to the clinics, scholarships where given, for a week, Panama was turned into a Cultural Hub.

For Danilo, Panama is the perfect spot to nurture jazz. With an almost caleidoscopic culture….  SEE FULL STORY HERE

Slowly, organically, through patience and passion, Casco Viejo has grown to be Panama´s point of reference not only to experience the roots of the country but for most art events, concerts and shows. Artists roam the streets looking for gallery space or for a studio, even if in an unrestored building. Casco´s special social fabric where the poorest and the richest live side by side, getting along well and collaborating to make this a better neighborhood has also a lot to do with it. Also, the government´s help through the Oficina del Casco Antiguo, the Municipality, and the Historic Patrimony offices have been fantastic.

For Example: just last week Casa Góngora (which has become a regular spot for concerts Wednesdays and Fridays and an art gallery for emerging artist all other days) was showing pieces of sculpture Xenia Judith called “Esencia y Figuras” (Escence and Shapes). The same week, the Oficina del Casco Antiguo inaugurated another low income housing that will provide locals that are currently living in condemned buildings that need to get restored with beautiful housing, so they can continue to live in their own neighborhoods. Right in front of Casa Francia (this is the name of the new restored project, next to the iconic Boyacá at Plaza Herrera) you have the Danilo Perez Foundation, which is a music and jazz school for local kids. These locals at the same time are the source of inspiration and “salsa” of the hood. A perfect circle closes and feeds each stage to a renewed cycle.

I have to say they did a wonderful job rehabilitating the old Casa Francia. Plaza Herrera is becoming slowly one of the most interesting plazas in the neighborhood. Almost four fully restored social buildings housing locals that are actively contributing to the neighborhood with their businesses (from food, to seemstres, to haircuts, shoe repair shop and more). Other projects have started construction nearby, expanding this wave of rescue of the Caribbean patrimony of Casco Antiguo. But it doesn´t stop there, as Plaza Herrera is also home to the Danilo Pérez Foundation, a recently created jazz school at the old Music Conservatory building, right in front of Boyacá.

International music star, Danilo Pérez, and local developer Conservatorio S.A. entered in an agreement where the developer donated space to the foundation in this beautiful building for ten years. Children from the area are already attending to classes, some under scholarships and some incredibly talented ones had even gotten fellowships to study at the New England Conservatory.

Not bad for a 300 year old colonial city, only 15 streets and 3 avenues!

Colegio del Cuerpo in Casco Viejo, Panama

To spark change through dance. To transform children forever, from inside out. Any casual observer would see a beautiful modern dance troupe that could have easily been from New York. But it wasn´t just “any troupe”. It was Colegio del Cuerpo.
Colegio del Cuerpo is a dance troupe from Cartagena that was born in the poorest area of Colombia´s historic town. It was founded by Alvaro Restrepo, taking children from the streets and opening the doors of art to them. Ten years later, the company is worldclass. Interesting, well trainned, produces beautiful and meaningful ballets. After their presentation in Panama last year at the Sobresaltos Dance Festival in Casco Viejo, the Oficina del Casco Antiguo worked with them to set up a similar program in Panama´s historic city. It was a dream for the fifteen kids who originally participated in Sobresaltos.

But also a vital element for those involved in the revitalization of Casco Antiguo. Currently Panama City´s second tourism destination, the historic area is thriving. Hotels are being built, restaurants and bars are very often busy, and art festivals or miscellaneous events are now part of the colonial city´s fabric.  Locals are an important part of this development, and art is one of the best ways they can express themselves and collaborate with the best of their culture.

Last week, the official inauguration of the program took place at Plaza Bolívar, at the current Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Colegio del Cuerpo did a great show in front of a large number of kids, now all future dancers.  To see Alvaro Restrepo say at the end: “my dancers where your age when they started” and to see the results right there, was simply incredible.

To leave a place better than when you arrived. For most travelers, the goal is to enjoy stress free vacations. Most of them look for an adventure, something new, with content.  Panama is the place where they can find all these things, as it hasn´t developed fully its tourism industry.

In Casco Viejo, Panama´s colocial city, they´ll find content around each corner. There is excitement over its revitalization, the vibrant mixed community that is organically growing. But there is also something more; there is a community fighting to break the cycle of poverty, and travelers can help out.

Fundación Calicanto and Aprojusan (Asociación Pro Juventud de San Felipe) are two NGO´s devoted to this goal. Aprojusan deals mostly with children, providing art workshops as the honey to atract them, but in reality they end up participating in a complementary afterschool program that includes medical check ups, lunch, close following ups with each subject and their teachers at school. But most of all, they are offered a safe place, where they are respected and cared for. The program just got their new headquarters, a space donated by Conservatorio S.A. at the heart of the historic district. For the next two years, Aprojusan´s goals will include fundraising to build their own headquarters within the historic district.

Fundación Calicanto might be one of the oldest NGO´s working in the area. They support all activities from Aprojusan and run programs like CAPTA, which is hotel trainning for local women. Focusing on mothers and their children is the only proven way to break the cycle of poverty effectively, forever. Women from CAPTA attend to a two month intense trainning that includes not only technical trainning but also self esteem and even household administration. 80% of the women in this course end up with a steady job. From living on less than 5$ a day, now graduates have not only means to raise their family properly but they can think about their own education. In less than two years, goal have changed from survival to study English. Next year, they´ll be able to apply to credit to buy their own home.

When visiting Casco Viejo think about this. It is the axis of a mixed community that lives in harmony. Your trip can help sustain these programs with simple donations. Consider this: sending a woman to a hotel trainning course and changing forever the life of her family (probably includes 5 to 6 members) takes only $300 a year. Every contribution is able to build a better future for the entire area. When talking about investments and multiplying effects, most news today focus on pesimistic information. It is good to know beforehand your vacations in Panama can have such a positive impact with so little.

For donations write hvasquez@hacheuve.com or patrizia@arcoproperties.com

We waited a long time, but it was well worth it! The Oficina del Casco Antiguo, a government office which serves as a link between UNESCO and all government and private entities finally has a website that shows all the good work they are doing. The website is a reflection of everything Casco Antiguo is: a mixed, vibrant community. Full of art, color and flavor. Congratulations!!! Also, a big hurray for Clara Hardin, our associate who appears at “Mi Barrio” (“our neighborhood”), where they posted interviews with several people from the neighborhood, from the local school teacher to entrepreneurs (like us!) and philantropists.

If you have followed my blog, you might already know Aprojusan. It is a local NGO that runs a very good after school program for poor children in Casco Viejo, teaching them art, pottery and fun games, at the same time that monitors their school work, help with homework and even provide health check ups and dentist treatment.  They where ready to expand their program, but strugling to get resources to adapt the new space donated by the Casco Antiguo developer Conservatorio S.A. at Santa Familia on Fourth Street and A Avenue in San Felipe, Casco Antiguo.

Luckily, the word got out that a ship from the Marines was crossing the canal and that they would gladly donate their time and strenght to help out.  So… believe it or not for a full day, Casco Viejo got invaded by US Marine troops from the SS Saturn.  Well organized and running like only the army knows how, they got most of the hard work done in a few hours. And thanks to them, Aprojusan has been able to run this week their first pottery classes.

Thanks so much guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    You are the best!!!!

When thinking on our corporate Christmas present, I came to the conclusion (pretty obvious) that this wasn´t just any cheery Christmas, but a very sensitive one.  Looking around, I found this phrase that suddenly clicked in my mind as the correct one:

“Like a great poet, nature is capable of producing the most stunning effects with the smallest means”.

Also, we decided not to do it as a Christmas present, but as a New Year one, under the premise that people don´t really stop to meditate, as they are busy on other things.  We hope this present carries a true message of hope for 2009.

Like bees to honey, kids are being drawn into the old Santa Familia School. The reason: a very simple skating park has been built for them by the local Flow surf shop and Conservatorio S.A., a company dedicated to the revitalization of Casco Antiguo.

The reason behind the park, other than keeping the kids out of the street is to attract them to Aprojusan´s afterschool program, where they get not only help with homework, but emotional support, health checkups, lunch and even art workshops.

The kids seem to be having a lot of fun! although a tough sport, they don´t mind, their young bodies seem indestructible and after each fall they just bounce back into position.  Getting them excited was very easy, during the months previous to the opening of the space, many would keep asking… “when is it going to be ready?”.   Now that it is, the next challenge would be to have enough equipment for everyone.

With the help of Conservatorio, Aprojusan is expanding their facilities to be able to acommodate this new group of children which ranges from 6 years to teenagers. This last group has been typically the most difficult to attract as they perceive art workshops as childish. The new strategy worked out with Flow seems to be working, and slowly change is entering into their lives.

Most public schools in Panama have a nice tradition of what we call the “paseos”:  students get out of the classrooms and go to somewhere depending on what the teacher´s objective is, to learn a specific subject but outside the classroom.

Casco Antiguo has at least 5 public schools within its historic “walls”: Ruben Hurtado, Nicolas Pacheco, Simon Bolivar and Escuela de Mexico and Escuela de Estados Unidos. Most of them elementary schools, some better than others, but all with a great teaching resource at hand: Casco Antiguo itself.  And they use it extensively. It is very common to see entire classrooms walking on a row, lead by several teachers, visiting the historic monuments and buildings like Panama´s Presidential Palace.  What an incredible luck for those kids to have all these things at hand. Like living in Rome or in Washington DC and being able to walk the same roads the founding fathers of our nation walked. Even if not appreciated fully at their young age, there is an emotional learning happening.

For me, it has a special significance to see those kids walking daily around with their teachers.  To see them enjoying history brings history itself alive, and the Casco once again, proves itself not to be a dead museum but a fully alive witness of our history.