Museo Soumaya will host the exhibition ‘Small Sailors’

The Plaza Carso Soumaya Museum will host from February 13th to 28th the exhibition ‘Small Sailors’ (Pequeñas Navegantes), which brings together 80 plastic works made by high school students of 21 states of the country, as part of the actions of the WWF-TELMEX/TELCEL Foundation Partnership to generate ideas and proposals that help the conservation of the olive ridley, the smallest of the sea turtles.

The authors are hundreds of young people who participated in the environmental education program ‘Nature in your school’ (Naturaleza en tu escuela), which benefited 18 thousand students from 184 campuses during the 2017-2018 school year and which in this 2018 is celebrating 5 years. In total 350 works were received, of which 80 were selected through the vote of 83,530 people via Internet.

At the opening ceremony, Jorge Rickards, General Director of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Mexico , said: “We present with enthusiasm and hope these works, which purpose is for students to develop a task that involves aspects of biology, geography, art and ethics, which will help them both to become aware of the threats faced by these emblematic species and their ecosystems, and to disseminate and implement actions to conserve them.”

For its part, Marcela Velasco, Director of Corporate Marketing at TELCEL, said: “We are proud of the results of ‘Nature in your school’, and this is why we reaffirm our commitment to the preservation of Mexico’s natural resources through this program, which has become a reference by adding civil society, authorities, scientists, academics, communities and socially responsible companies such as TELCEL and TELMEX. All this effort is the basis of the exhibition we present today. ”

Also, guest artist, Pepe Soho, said: “When we establish a link with nature, and especially when we generate that connection with the little ones, we encourage respect for flora and fauna, but above all, we allow ourselves to understand the incredible value that life has.”

The 80 drawings, paintings, sculptures and models created by the students, mainly with recycled materials, will be exhibited for two weeks in the Soumaya Museum.

Since its creation in 2014, the program ‘Nature in your school’ has taken its message to 45,513 students from 433 public and private schools in 25 states of the Republic. These actions seek to raise awareness of species such as the white shark, the jaguar, the monarch butterfly and the gray whale, so that more Mexicans value and protect them and contribute to maintaining our country as the fourth most biodiverse in the world.

This project addresses issues such as the biology of the species, the threats it faces and the conservation work carried out by the WWF-TELMEX/TELCEL Foundation Partnership.

The Partnership has supported turtle camps in the Sea of Cortez that in almost a decade have released 900,000 sea turtle hatchlings, most of them olive ridleys. To this it must be added the 280,000 olive ridley turtles released during four years in the turtle camp Playa Larga Environmental Management, in Acapulco, Guerrero, led by marine ecologist Víctor Verdejo.

 

By: WWF México