We are proud to announce that artist/musician/professor Sue Powers and her family will travel to El Porvenir Coffee Cooperative to teach art and music and perform music! Below is the press release from CCAC.
Tenemos el orgullo que la artísta/música/profesora Sue Powers y su familia viajarán al cooperativo de café, El Porvenir. Enseñarán clases de arte, música y tocaron música! Abajo se encuentra el comunicado de prensa de CCAC.
CCAC instructor brings the arts to remote region of Nicaraguan coffee farmers
PITTSBURGH—Community
College of Allegheny County (CCAC) Adjunct Art Professor Susan Powers is
headed to Central America to teach art and music. For two weeks, Powers
and her family will give lessons to the families
of reconciled former Sandinista, Contra and Somoza fighters in El
Porvenir, a community of 200 in the northwest mountains of Nicaragua.
Accompanied by her
husband, musician and educator Jeff Berman, and their sons, Sam and Eli,
Powers will depart later this month. The family will take donated
musical instruments, art supplies, prescription eyeglasses
and mirrors—items difficult for the residents, who are mostly coffee
farmers, to obtain in this remote region.
Powers became involved with the El Porvenir community through
Sara Cuadra-Berg, a native of Nicaragua living in Pittsburgh.
It was through Cuadra-Berg’s family—who in turn are serving as the
Powers’ hosts during their stay—that Powers learned that the teenagers
of El Porvenir had a desire to learn
more about the arts.
In
advance of her trip, Powers received donated arts supplies from the
Squirrel Hill-based arts store Artist and Craftsman and an art materials
grant from the Granada Arts Education Project.
She will be working in collaboration with the project’s founder, Mauren
Antkowski, to present an arts curriculum in Spanish. Powers’ projects
will include observational drawing and painting lessons, composition
theory and photography.
According to Powers, “What makes my work with the community unique is
that I will be developing relationships to create a learning
environment that is site-specific and one of open engagement, where the
language of art is taught and shared and responds to
the needs and desires of El Porvenir.”
