Eco-Tourism/Sustainable Tourism Initiative: 2006-2007
VYLI’s Eco-Tourism Initiative showcases the Island’s environmental rebirth and promote it as a eco-tourism destination. We welcome Tania Cruz as our new Project Coordinator for our Eco-Tourism Initiative. Every Friday Tania travels from the main Island to Vieques so that on Saturday she organizes workshops for enthusiastic young people. We hired local artisans to share their skills and knowledge with VYLI youth. Every Saturday afternoon, we conduct workshops with a Taino artisan and Viequense project coordinator. Young people (ages 11-17) are learning to collect and harvest indigenous products (calabash) and then carve them into songbird houses with beautiful Taino designs. We’ve researched the shape and style for creating songbird houses. We’ve begun researching and documenting the birds that are returning to Vieques and identifying their favorite trees. We collect seedlings and conduct a tree-planting project with University of Puerto Rico students.
For our 3rd season on the Malecon, young people sold the songbird houses to tourists along with our other holiday gifts and souvenirs: VYLI logo T-shirts and pendants and hand-made jewelry from Vieques’ natural seeds and beeds, which were featured in the 3rd annual Caribbean Artisan Festival in Tortola, BVI. When VYLI’s youth are selling souvenirs and holiday gifts, they will welcome and educate tourists with our educational pamphlet. We hope they will share this with their friends back home.
Tree Planting: Eco-Tourism Service Day
For Christmas, each VYLI youth’s family received a new tree and songbird house so they can practice being an environmental steward of their island. They learned about which trees will attract more birds to Vieques and help reduce global warming. On December 9, ten students from UPR Cayey’s Eco-Tourism Club traveled to Vieques for a tree planting project with VYLI youth. In just one day, they presented 17 trees to families so young people can practice being an environmental steward of their island. Thanks to Tania, the founding president of the UPR’s Eco-Tourism Club for organizing this wonderful exchange to help build a new Vieques.
Bike Repair Workshops
15-year-old Carlos Belardo was the first to bring his bike to VYLI’s first Summer Institute. The Institue’s faculty from Jason Upshaw was impressed with how creatively Carlos had jerry-rigged his bike – using whatever he could find to keep it going. Just imagine what he could do with the right tools! Two years later 17-year-old Carlos is now teaching other youth how to fix their bikes in our Saturday workshops. He also works at Black Beard Sports. Bikes are good for our health, the environment and our island.
Sustainable Living: 2007
In order to build strong leaders, young people need to eat healthy foods and learn to live a healthier lifestyle. Studies show that poor eating habits result in serious health issues as well as poor attention span in school resulting in school drop outs, a predisposition to alcohol, drugs, crime and violence. Most Viequeneses youth eat junk food and fast foods as often as possible. They don’t eat vegetables – either because there are too expensive or not easily available. Most produce is shipped from gardens on the main island -- once a week and are limited to few vegetables. Over the years, the art of gardening has been lost for nearly two generations. There are few gardens and little to no produce grown in Vieques. Viequenses need to rekindle the spirit of gardening and create a healthy diet of vegetables so they can help rebuild Vieques for their future generations.
In 2004, the Vieques community created a Sustainable Development Master Plan that serves as a roadmap for the ambitious job of rebuilding the Island and planning for its future. VYLI is aligned with the Sustainable Development Master Plan and received a letter of support from Estudios Técnicos Inc. for our contribution to these specific areas: marketing strategies for Vieques brands; marketing strategies for tourism; strategies for stimulating economic activities. During the coming years, VYLI will collaborate with other organizations in Vieques to create an inter-generational community gardening to inspire youth and community to increases their health, reduce socially destructive behaviors and that provides the foundation for a sustainable model of leadership development from the inside-out.
