La Carpio, Costa Rica
Cueva de Luz is a school built by the community, driven by Alicia Aviles - a woman, a mother and humble leader of pure inspiration, brought a community together in solving the issues within the informal settlement of La Carpio.
La Carpio has been uplifted by the integration of a new school, Cueva de Luz, that provides spaces for creativity and learning – made possible by none other than the community and participation in a common goal for the growth of their children.
Children should be eased into society, not isolated from it – so that they develop the fundamentals to lead a healthy, life of kindness but without receiving a shock to what exists on the outside. There is a large aspect of disintegration according to context, where children are isolated from family matters in bubbles of safety in the western world, and confronted by it daily in Costa Rica where the severity has an effect in their later lives. This aspect of disintegration is evident in many other realms, where the residents of La Carpio work away from home, the community is starkly separated to other communities through topographical means, however, public and private is somewhat blurred – where the streets within La Carpio are public meeting spaces, which connect to the private life of the home through commercial semi-public fronts.
An aspect that struck me while in Costa Rica, was the role of women in society - who cannot walk to a bus stop without being bothered by men. According to research, it is said that it takes a man 10 minutes to walk to the bus, and 15 for a woman due to the men calling and wolf-whistling as she walks by. This marginalisation of people does not end between communities, but also women - where their social status makes it tedious for them, as school activities promote the stereotypes of women in society. The women of La Carpio, who do not have the education or the job in order to financially assist their children to go to day-care, forces the woman to stay at home.
The most fascinating aspect of La Carpio, is that the children may not have had the “privilege” of owning an iPad at the age of five, yet they appear more privileged than most. These children find joy in the simple pleasures, as children should, and are content with spaces to run and spaces to hide, spaces to climb and spaces to build. I aim to foster this autonomy, through movement and expression – for the child that wants to read, to the child that wants to paint, to the child whose “energy is too much”.
