FACTORTIERRA

 S ource of pride for Piura in NASA   TALARA, Peru – Alexandra Castro, a fifth-year high school student at 15513 "Emblemática Talara " School, has achieved a unique experience: visiting the Houston Space Center , one of the most iconic places in space exploration history, as part of the She is an Astronaut program.   Sponsored by SLB, this initiative empowers girls through Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics ( STEAM ), encouraging them to pursue careers in these fields.   The She is an Astronaut program, launched in 2019, selects talented girls from Latin America , offering them an immersive STEAM education and the opportunity to visit NASA ’s Houston Space Center. The program challenges gender stereotypes and empowers future generations of female scientists and space explorers.   NASA: Pioneer in Space Exploration— Since its inception in 1958, NASA has been at the forefront of space exploration. From the historic Apollo p...

          Carlo Mejía Rojas is a prominent artist from Piura whose work spans from teaching to artistic creation in various disciplines such as painting, theater, dance, and music . With a solid and accomplished career, Mejía has dedicated his life to promoting art and culture in his community, making an impact both educationally and culturally.   Mejía Rojas was educated at some of the most renowned art schools in Peru. He began his studies at the Macedonio de la Torre School of Fine Arts in Trujillo in 1998 and later continued at the Ignacio Merino School of Fine Arts in Piura, where he graduated in 2000.   He furthered his education with studies in graphic design at the Ábaco Institute in Piura in 2007 and training in artistic screen printing between 2012 and 2013.   Mejía's teaching career began in 2001 and has spanned over two decades in various educational institutions, both at the primary and secondary levels. His spe...

CHULUCANAS, Peru – When the 2017 Census published its results, the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI as its initials in Spanish) revealed that the population of Piura Department had surpassed 1.85 million inhabitants. Estimates for 2023 consider that this figure is around two million.   The same 2017 Census showed that out of the entire population of the department, 125,000 people identified as Afro- descendants .   Statistically, Piura is the second most populous department in Peru. At that time, another indicator was added: it has the second largest Afro-Peruvian community , with three out of every 20 inhabitants being Afro-descendants, speaking in purely Piura terms. Proportionally, this means three out of every 20 inhabitants in the second most populous department of Peru are Afro-descendants.       Of the entire Afro-descendant community in Piura, 47% are women .   According to NGO Kaikuna , Afro-descendant wo...

Written and photographed by Mariluz Mejía, distributed by agrored Norte.   Girls and teenagers of Provinces Ayabaca and Huancabamba, highlands of Piura Departmen t , participate in the ethnical-botanical investigation made by Agrored Norte & Mountain Institute , funded by Peru’s National Council of Science & Technology, Ministry of environment, and Ministry of Agrarian Development & Irrigation, about the potential of wild fruit species of páramos and cloud forests .   They are high-school students of Totora school, Pacaipampa District ( Ayabaca Province ) and Cajas-Shapaya’s Virgen del Carmen School, El Carmen de la Frontera District ( Huancabamba Province ).   Those girls and teenagers mean a potential in scientific knowledge generation to value the riches of Piura Andes biodiversity, that belongs to the families living around the páramos and cloud forest ecosystems   The contribution of the girls’ knowledge  about  the ...

CANCHAQUÉ, Peru – Nicolás Rodríguez Julca dreams to be an agricultural engineer. He’s just 9 years old, studies in 5th grade Elementary at 14498 San Francisco School, and he’s the Environmental Chief. Adding the care of the place where he lives, one of his tasks is to promote healthy food habits among his classmates.   Currently, the school has stimulated the families to own orchards at their houses, so having more variety in food they consume.   Precisely, Nicolas’ job consists to visit these houses every week, to register the orchards status in a file: if the soil is already prepared, if it’s already planted, irrigated, removed the bad weed, or if it’s the harvest time. Based upon these results, Nicolás can give some recommendations.   Nicolás’ teacher Haydeé Choque sulco supervises the work, opines the boy is a leader along, as well as the orchard improves the social-environmental skills of the students. The vegetables cropped at the school and the hom...

    Photographs provided by Dandy Ruíz Estrada, distributed by FACTORTIERRA.   MARCAVELICA, Peru – Perhaps the most difference between an artist and somebody who’s not in it lays over his skill to see the beauty, or the possibility to make it up, right there where we see something usual or insignificant. That was why Dandy Ruíz Estrada , a.k.a. El Dandy, made as much as possible for the wall of a school turned a canvas of a collective creation.   “We’re losing the identity,” stresses the 40-year-old visual artist, Mallaritos-native, a town forming now one urban zone with Marcavelica, both part of Sullana Metro Area, the largest of Chira Valley .   At Andrés avelino Cáceres School, also known as Mallaritos, El Dandy and students of the three first high-school grades took over than 120 feet of wall –almost the front yard of 4 average houses in Sullana—and they started to represent frames of the local identity and ecology , as well as the histor...

The Sullana-native actor has a successful adaptation of a Latin-American classic amid his highlights, and bringing that art inside his hometown.   By Nelson         Peñaherrera Castillo   Every word has power. I’m not talking about divinity, neither metaphysics. If you can read aloud the first sentence of this paragraph, and you can vary the tone or the intention, it’s possible you notice it. It’s better if you are alone, not to avoid others doubt on your mental balance but learning to hear yourself in the silence, and discovering what your communication skill is. That is what the Sullana-native actor Nerit Olaya Guerrero (1958) is doing.   Once upon a Good day, after reading again the Uruguayan writer Mario Benedetti (Paso de los Toros, Sep. 14, 1920 – Montevideo, May 17, 2009), he conceived a play based upon his novel The Truce (1960), that tells the story of a retired man who loses his wife and builds a new relati...