04 / May / 2023

Last Saturday, April 15, we shared with the Drake Bay community a festival to celebrate the 20th anniversary of our environmental education program.

The festival was well attended by families from the area, where they enjoyed workshops, typical dances, musical performances, trampolines, inflatables, cotton candy and slushies, sale of typical food and crafts. We also had the participation of many organizations in the area that are working on environmental education.

We also held an art making competition with recycled materials, where the participants, children and adults, put their skills and creativity to the test. The first place winner won a prize of 100,000 colones credit at Cerro de Oro Hardware Store, second place a prize of a basket of groceries and third place a prize of a fruit basket.

After 20 years of continuous environmental education, we can confirm the enormous impact that raising awareness to conserve and protect the integrity of ecosystems and the human beings that inhabit them has had in the communities of influence.

“Our programs have empowered children and their parents to become active participants, teaching them to care for their precious biodiversity and become part of the transformation of communities and habitats throughout the Osa Peninsula,”

says Helena Pita, coordinator of the Education Program.

“The children who started with us in 2003 are the young adults of today. Our programs helped them dream beyond their situations, set goals and create new futures.

Today, they are the new generation of adults making a difference in their communities.” Alejandra Monge, executive director of the foundation, who has followed the progress of the participants for 20 years, commented.

“It was as if they tied a stick to us so that we would grow up straight as a tree, they taught us that we could achieve whatever we put our minds to,” said Raquel Quirós, a former program participant and now president of the Drake Development Association.

The activity is an opportunity to give thanks to the people and organizations that support and believe in our work.