( Golden Rule Mosaics )

The Golden Rule Foundation’s most ambitious International Service Learning Project to date find a partner with U.S. State Department’s “Art In Embassies Program” to unveil “El Mosaico de la Comunidad” (The Community Mosaic) in Merida, Mexico, on October 27, 2011.

Under the leadership of its Executive Director Henry Vales and Consul Greg Segas of the US Consulate in Mexico, the project began its arduous road to the actual specimen sketch almost two years ago.

The Golden Rule Foundation has received funding from consulate healthcare of Maitland, Florida, the Hertz-Avasa group and the Valcer Foundation of Mexico as well as the Gracia Belle Livingston Foundation and Acropolis, Inc. A conglomerate of TV stations from the US and Mexico will be covering the event which will hopefully find its way into a world documentary for its pilot role in this first of its kind project.

The 32′ by 8′ giant was drawn by world renowned sculptor David Cumbie (Epcot, Disney, The Butkus Award, The Pete Maravich Award and famous mayan arts professor Luis Manuel May Ku, presently exhibiting at the Mexican Consulate in Orlando, Florida and the Art House in Casselberry from elements and ideas provided by 3 schools and 2 cultural organizations in Mexico.

The giant piece of art will be mounted on the dominant wall of the America’s oldest consulate in Latin America, established in 1843 and its first consul, archaeologist Frank Thompson, who served a very important role in the discovery and development of Mexico’s mayan world for a world of visitors.

The art teachers in the 3 Florida schools found the cooperation of their fellow teachers (of math, world history, geography, arithmetic, and Spanish teachers) to blend the student work in the first 3 weeks of school so that the art classes would be able to apply those traditional curriculum components on the mosaic panels pieces their students were assigned to create in glazed ceramic as the “service” part of their service-learning exercise. The pieces will be hand-delivered by chosen teachers and families traveling back and forth between the two countries and chosen by the schools to assist in their assembly at a designated location prior to their transport to the US Consulate.

Skype and other forms of social media will be used so that the students from both countries are able to interact on the experience of perhaps the first introduction to diplomacy in action. Both groups have a lot to learn. Basically, the US students will get a real application of the things they are learning in school. It is service-learning at its best. The mosaic will serve both sides in many unforgettable ways as adults will have the opportunity to see what is important to children in today’s world and perhaps serves to improve social and educational directions for both countries.

Strengthening GRF’s old mission of “building character through generosity and service to others”, Vales, a native of Merida, Mexico says he is all vested in this project. A proud American and Vietnam vet remembers growing up in the city of Merida and attended one of the schools (Colegio Montejo), which will be working on the assembling of panels as the pieces arrive from Wetherbee Elementary in Orlando, Wilton Manors Elementary in Ft. Lauderdale, and Englewood Elementary in Englewood, Florida. He thinks that teaching young children their role as world citizens is the future of a better world for generations to come.

Tags: David Cumbie, El Mosaico de la Comunidad, Henry Vales, International Service Learning Project, The Golden Rule Foundation