Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Big Impact Astronomy, where we explore stories of how the stars are changing lives and connecting communities around the world. From stargazing under war torn skies to bringing science education to isolated communities, we uncover the incredible impact of astronomy beyond the observatory.
This episode of Big Impact Astronomy is brought to you by Primalucha Labs.
Prima Lucha Labs makes space exploration accessible for all and empowers communities worldwide through innovative educational astronomy solutions.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Hello everyone. I'm Mike Simmons, the founder of Astronomy for Equity. Welcome to the Big Impact Astronomy Podcast. Today we have part of a team in Guadalajara, Mexico that I've known for quite a long time now called Tribu. They can explain what that means. They do outreach in a lot of different ways in a lot of different places. So we have three members of the team.
First we have Cuautemok Mendez Rosas and he's a professor of mathematics, physics and astronomy, content director at TEDx Zappapon, content director at Tribu Cultural Astronomica. He's established collaborations with the Mexican Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Tourism, Guadalajara Zoo, Explora Platform, American Astronomical Society, sky and Telescope, Kaper on and on and on and on. He's a speaker at the University of Texas at San Antonio, at the Astronomy Education Conference, at the IAU Education Astronomy Summit, and other things.
Now, Jose Guillermo Mendez Rosas is known as Memo, which I'm told is short for Guillermo. And sometimes he's known as Bruno the Clown. We'll get to that.
Now he's a professor of circus arts.
That's a thing I didn't know existed. And he's a co founder of Bravissimo, an organization dedicated to the design and production of shows and cultural services.
He is accredited for doing social circus programs run by Cirque du Monde, which is a social foundation created by Cirque du Soleil.
And he created Ciudad Sonoris, an artistic performance that mixes juggling with the narrative of traditional neighborhoods in Guadalajara. In the circus, he transforms into Bruno the Astronomical Pirate, who explains basic topics of astronomy to children through videos and performs in children's theater and so on. Magdalena Rodriguez Romero, professor in Development, Social Responsibility.
She is a general director of Desaroyo Humano da Jalisco, a company dedicated to the design, implementation, evaluation of social development programs for civil associations, governments and organizations such as the Office of UN Women, the United Nations Development Program, usaid.
She's a member of the Tribute crew and has participated as a guide in each and every one of the experiences developed so far.
So this is quite an interesting group that makes up part of the team, I think Kwao Thaemook, I know you, is the president of this or leader or founder or something. Is that right?
Everybody is. This is a team.
[00:03:45] Speaker C: That's why we are called Tribu. Tribu is the Spanish word for tribe. This is about becoming a group. And actually that's what we bring every time we present ourselves. The people become part of the same crew of the same Tribu.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: So who wants to tell us what Tribu does?
You go into rural areas, quite different, where they don't have all the same resources as they do in the relatively big city of Guadalajara. Tell us how it got started and what you're doing.
[00:04:17] Speaker C: I think everyone has a very interesting part. I hope to share, if I may.
I became an astronomy teacher since 2017.
Once I realized about the effect that astronomy has on in people.
We were talking Guillermo, Magda, myself and Juan, the other associate of the same ngo that we should take this to other audiences, to bigger audiences. Magda is a rock star in the social development environment.
So he helped to create, but now is an ngo.
He designed the programs to apply for different calls and different grants. And I'm resuming seven years of what we have done so far. And maybe she or Memo may explain about different parts of what this NGO is about.
[00:05:16] Speaker D: Well, I can share that they were started as a goodwill project, even a voluntary project to share what we love. That is the love for science, knowledge, learning and you know, like just getting together and as a community. So I guess that is at the heart, as was saying, but at the same time, with the talents of this diverse team, as you can see, team of all of us are in this sphere, engineers. But at the end we have this other side of our profession that is more devoted either to the arts, to the community development and our role and my specific role in this process of seven years that Gautama was describing was developing the foundations of what we call the theory of change. How is Trivo going to contribute to the community and how are we going to measure that impact? And that is what my specific contribution to this journey has been. And actually we have documented that journey in a very interesting way to try to also contribute to the ecosystem of other organizations in the Astronomy for Development and astronomy education space to try to share that even though we are a very community based organization, we can also contribute to the knowledge of how astronomy can really transform children and youth and all the community through connection, through sharing just the love for space and the awe of looking at the sky, and also contribute economically to the community.
So that has been my role and also part of this foundation of tip.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Okay, well, Memo, you want to tell us your part?
[00:07:26] Speaker E: Yeah, I suppose that there was a meeting here from the stripper clue, but no, no, I'm in another part. Sorry about that. I'm a part of the bim in front of the audience.
My job is to empathize with the. With the kids, with the family and with some circus performings or circus arts like clown juggling balance. Also about my engineering knowledge.
We are. I'm the link of the teachers and the students.
So I think that I'm the tool that maybe or yeah the tools or the knowledge that could help that this is more like an experience and maybe not just like classwork or a typical.
I don't know, like knowledge. So I'm trying to give to this team like to complete the like the experience.
So you know, and I'm kind of funny guy that all the time I'm joking and moving my body to get like funny. But for first in my life this have like the most meaning of like with the astronomy and with the audience. So thank you for. For this meeting and hit the next questions.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Oh, good. I'll aim some hard ones at you.
You all have. You're all engineers of one kind or another. You have backgrounds doing other things.
We are used to the amateur astronomy community having lots of people that aren't astronomers per se. They love astronomy. And here you are doing other things. You came together, this team, these three and the team plus others.
So why astronomy? How did this constellation, this galaxy come together with all the stars coalescing into this?
[00:09:31] Speaker C: I like to answer to that question. When Tribu was born here in Mexico, we were under. I mean we still are under a very polarized environment, very social, polarized environment.
And I was already an astronomy teacher. And we realized what could be the best topic that could remind us all that we are part of the same thing. Well, maybe something for which the.
How you say something with more apertura. Right.
And we realize that astronomy is actually the best. If I could say the best topic that remind us all.
I mean, it doesn't matter about your opinion. Okay, Your opinion does matter. And there are several different opinions. And guess what? We all live in the same rock. We are all part of the same rock and something that we took very seriously. We also share it with a bunch of different species.
So that's why Tribu is. Is about.
[00:10:35] Speaker D: Actually I will also point out that the genesis of Tribu is also the fact that quotemus bought A telescope. And he gave it to me as a present and we didn't know how to use it. And actually I never thought of having a telescope. I think he was planning on using the telescope, but bought it as a gift to have an excuse to buy it in the first place. But anyway, we needed to learn how to use the telescope. And we joined the astronomy Society here in Guadalajara. And we realized that this was a very small community, very bonded and very like a club of people that, as you were saying, Mike, that they love astronomy and they have been studying that for years, but it was so close and small. And we were like, why is this so tiny when this is so powerful and so transformative? We need to share this news, this good news of how looking at the stars can give you perspective of your own life, of your own history, and of course, of the humanity. And it opens a lot of ideas and creativity.
So that's why we started exploring how to scale these methodologies and these learnings that we experience ourselves.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: Memo, do you have anything there?
[00:12:09] Speaker E: And I want to add that Tribu made this our, I don't know, 12 pro work, 12 mark.
Because we have like all my life working with my brothers.
So in all the, I don't know, jobs that I had, I was with my brother. So we have a candle factory, we have a butterfly farms, we have this incredible circus group, the circus festivals.
So for me and from this time of experience, like it's trivial all the time. We are like founding what is the meaning of our life. And now the astronomy is the way.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: You guys are all entrepreneurs, business and social, and you've come around to astronomy and finally figured out what you should.
[00:13:08] Speaker C: Be doing that happens when you have to pay the bills. Mike, if I add something quite important, and I think distinctly from us, from this team is this circus. I mean, my brothers Memo here and Juan, who is the manager of this organization, they are professional jugglers and professional clowns. They even have their own circus. And most especially they run their own social circus program. So actually, here in Tribu, we really emulated that practice to bring a new topic, in this case astronomy, to the same rural and urban places, public places, right again, as they do with the circus topic to bring people together. Right. The point is we do start gazing to approach people. In Spanish, we call it Miramo las estrellas, paracercada las Personas. And again, that's the part of, that's the point of the name Tribu.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Let's show some of the, some of the things that you do These are all in different places because you said you go to different rural areas. Guadalajara is big enough that you could go anywhere and you could have new people instantly. But you don't run in Guadalajara.
So this looks like any other star party. People waiting in line to take a look through a pretty large telescope. What is it? A 10 inch 12.
So where is this?
[00:14:40] Speaker C: This is Zapopan. Every, every year we run what is named Festival de la Astronomia, the astronomy festival. And there are like seven, maybe ten different stargazing events totally free for the audience. Right? We bring the telescopes and of course we bring the most powerful resource we have, which is Bruno. Bruno the pirate. Bruno does juggling, but through it he actually explains some astronomy basics for kids. In case anyone would like to to take a look at this video. They are free in our YouTube channel, Tribo Cultura Astronomica. There Bruno explains how to find the North Star, how to find the different, how to say, the different phases of the moon. Right. Stuff like this especially they were produced during pandemics. They were designed so the fathers and mothers may talk about astronomy with their kids to go out and start do some stargazing, find some constellations, because what we all were leading and all. When I say all, I mean as a planet. Remember, in those conditions I invite you to take a visit and maybe. And Mike, of course you and your audience are invited to the next festival. You make no get to know Bruno life.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: That, that's great. I don't know. He's a pirate. So I. I'm not going to be alone with him in a room or anything like that. But yeah, I would love to come down and see what you guys do. It's not that far from Southern California here.
[00:16:21] Speaker C: Actually, there is a reason why he is a pirate, Mike, and that's because, remember pirates used to use stars and constellations to navigate. That's the main reason why Memo, he's the designer of the character, use the pilot for this purpose.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Of course, of course.
And here's a nice open field. It's beautiful. Lots of telescopes pointed at different things. A good crowd or is this.
[00:16:46] Speaker C: That is a Tapalpa.
Memo, would you like to tell us something about that festival?
[00:16:54] Speaker E: Yeah, but that was an incredible night.
There's a space near from Guadalajara. It's Tapalpa. It's a beautiful place that the name of the area is Las Piedrotas in English is like the huge rocks.
And there's a legend that say that that rocks, they are not from there. So the legend says that Some aliens put it over there. That's the amazing. The amazing legend. But no, don't worry about that. So there's this huge rocks and this big area is incredible. That's what a amazing night.
And it was a one year ago. I think so.
Yeah. And all the community of the Tapalpa town was there and you know, the. The government and all the fancy government places and what like 200 people that have an incredible experience.
And even when all the fathers and mothers like old ones being in the line, we have this huge screen that we put the videos of Bruno Pilata. It's like a cinema.
So one of our goals, I think so I can explain is that even when the people are waiting the line to look the. That night was a full night. I think so. That was amazing. And with Jupiter and Saturn. I think so, yeah. It was a really amazing night.
So when. When the old people are in the line, the young ones are in the cinema with Bruno's videos. So I think that if I can say it is when. When the night like can pass. Not just one hour, like three. Like the kids are in. In the kids area with the phony and the jokes videos and some locals restaurants was there with corns and with some beverage, you know, coffee and some for the night, you know. You know, we are. We are adults so maybe we not. We need some help to get fun. But was in a beautiful start night.
What you can add Kote mug.
[00:19:22] Speaker C: Yeah, it was beautiful indeed. This is actually another day at the office.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Another day at the office. And where's the office on this day?
You mentioned the place, but how big? This is a town outside of Guadalajara someplace. How large?
[00:19:41] Speaker C: Next time you come here to visit Guadalajara, we'll take you there. My driving is like an hour and a half. It's a community with maybe 300,000 people.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: Okay. It's not a small town.
And to be clear, this is not just a star party like we're used to. This is an astronomy festival where you have many different things, not just the telescopes.
Indeed, let's move on and see what else. There is another telescope in a similar place.
[00:20:13] Speaker D: Actually it's the same place. And I would like to add to the comment of the office because maybe what is not visible in these photographs is what is behind in terms of the negotiation and the role that the team has into trying to maybe convince and also inspire the municipalities, particularly the director of tourism into trying to engage in this process. They are co investing with Tribu to make this happen.
It's not only Tribu, who comes and brings the amazing experience and the equipment and this, all of what has been said already, but also what the municipality understands on their role in trying to promote this type of opportunities. We did an evaluation, we talked to each one of the allies in the governments, and they all manifested that they had never thought these festivals were possible and they would never thought that people would be so, so excited and so engaged, especially children in these. So now they consider the possibility of doing this on their own and trying to promote science education, which is in our country, especially in rural areas, something that is totally out of reach or of the imagination. So that is a transformation in terms of trying to make a demand. Demand of. Of science education, which we believe is very powerful.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: When you do this, you might inspire some of the children there to be more interested in science, going to science. But this is even more so because it's a larger festival. Sometimes larger is good. Scaling up things. If it inspires the. The municipality to do it themselves and to follow your lead, then it just keeps growing all the time, your. Your effort. So that's, that's one thing here that I think is really great. I'm used to seeing people bringing telescopes, and when they bring telescopes, they have something happen. But if you can, you can plant the seed and tell them, look, this is how you do it, and they continue to do it, then your effort just keeps growing.
[00:22:41] Speaker C: Actually, Mike, if I may add, every festival has a vital component, which is a workshop for teachers about how to teach astronomy, how to include it in their regular topics.
And so with the stargazing event, we enhance the interest on this kind of topics. Team, for example, and then the teachers get the workshop, which is totally free, and then they may use the spread curiosity, the natural curiosity for these topics. Okay, you already observed the moon through the telescope. Now let's talk about the cycles of the moon, how many days, how many nights. So the kids start to do some math in a more interesting way. Right. Than usually. And that's a vital part of every one of the festivals because, okay, the circus is quite fun, the outreach happens, but also education is part of, of what we actually do.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: That's, that's fantastic. That really is unusual as is from what I've seen. I mean, it may happen here and there, but to make the end goal to be not just inspiring the students, but inspiring the municipality to continue on and inspire in the teachers at the same time is quite something. And here's something else. As a part of the astronomy festival, you have these inflatables here.
[00:24:07] Speaker C: Indeed. We invested like two years ago.
People are also the people are looking for a spot to take a picture and upload it to to their Instagram. So that's why we invested on this inflatables. A lot of people come attracted just to take a picture of them and then they spend the night with us. They observe through the telescopes, they watch Bruno's videos, they, they listen to the explanation. They take part of the interactive experiences and it's part of how do we approach and how do we bring new audiences into astronomy outreach.
[00:24:45] Speaker D: I would like to, to share as well some of the principles that we, that we want to share with the audience and those especially those who are starting in in astronomy outreach and education is that we our approaches baby steps. How do we get people to get interested in this? So something that mock and especially the clowns and the artistic community always reminds us is how do we make it fun, simple and attractive.
So that is our approach. And of course we want children to get engaged in more sophisticated and more profound contents. But if we cannot get them started with these baby steps, then we are never going to get to these more profound and sophisticated steps. And we are very concerned and you are as well about equity. And that is also what we have always very present. We need to make this work. For those who are not engaged yet in science education and astronomy is our best a tool to, to get them interested. So thank you for this space to share that as well with you.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: Well, yeah, we want people to know about what it is you do so that you can get more supporters, more festivals in different places, more people asking to learn about how to do it. We have to do that. The community, astronomy community around the world is a little bit scattered, you know, and people aren't always talking together and working together. We have the big meetings, but the people from countries where they don't have enough money to go to the big meetings are, are not part of that community. So, so it is difficult. So let's go back to some more of Bruno. Let's see. Here's Bruno.
[00:26:47] Speaker C: Meaning about the, the planets. You know, how to spot Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and all this stuff.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: It looks like he's. What is he chasing the crowd here? What's going on?
[00:27:02] Speaker C: Actually that's quite interesting for kids. He brought 200 hula hulas. So the kids were using the Hulas, you know. And what is the with hulas and the stargazing event? Well, they were orbiting as Saturn does it, you know, with the hulas. And that was quite Fun because the fathers, what they're really looking for is for the kids to get tired. So eventually they get to Beth earlier. Right.
There's a lot of physical activity as well with Bruno. And there were like 165 kids around of him doing the hula thing.
Lovely, no?
[00:27:42] Speaker B: That's wonderful. All with a moon in orbit around it.
And you got a screen here showing some things along with the blown up astronaut and a couple others.
The astronaut up close.
So these are really something. Now here's some daytime things like Brazilians.
[00:28:06] Speaker C: That experience started at 7, but at that place which is San Juan de los Lagos, it was still with sunny. So we started by observing the sun actually of course, with H Alpha telescopes and with true filters. And I presume one of those telescopes is already pointing to Jupiter.
[00:28:28] Speaker B: Speaking of looking at the sun, the total solar eclipse went. I think you were in 2004. Guadalajara was not quite in the eclipse path or it was very close though. So it got very dark and as it went across all of Mexico. And you had a big event for this and this for those that can't figure it out, is not a normal place around Guadalajara because there are very few giraffes running around in Mexico. So this is at the zoo. So you had the eclipse eventually at the zoo.
[00:29:09] Speaker C: Actually, the Guadalajara zoo, Mike. I should say this is the biggest one in Latin America.
59 hectareus.
And yes, it's one of our favorite places to do astronomy outreach. We have been doing at least seven different stargazing events during the night.
And so we prepare for the two different solar eclipses we had. We have one in. I presume it was October and then April.
Right.
And yes, we. We prepare some activities to happen there with the audience. And also we did a broadcast through the social media. So everyone may be part of the same same event.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: One of your H Alpha telescopes to directly the sun.
[00:30:01] Speaker C: Yes. And as you may observe, there is the camera which was attached to the computer. So we were transmitting the eclipse. And I presume there is another image at the same time that we were narrating the eclipse.
The zoo shared 16 cameras which were placed in 16 different animal habitats. So we were also the change of behavior of different species during the eclipse. Some of them were more evident, some of them were less evident. And when I say we were narrating the behavior of different species, that also includes the human species. There were 400 people having the same experience over there. And this is how we explained the true meaning of this experience, which is to become aware that yes, we do live in the space. We inhabit a planet and we share it with several different species.
[00:31:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's interesting too, because I've been to, I think, nine total solar eclipses in different places. Every one of them is different, and there are different animals around. And you see different things happening with the animals in response to what is happening. And it's all. It's one of the fascinating things that the animals think it's just gone to nighttime. And you see the one time I, you know, I think this is the only time I was in Mexico was in 1991 for. For Middle solar eclipse. And I was over in La Paz. And it was a very long. So it was over six and a half minutes.
So it felt like for a long time. And when the sun came back out, there were nighthawks flying around.
Very surprised. Suddenly be out during the day because they don't do that ordinarily.
So something happens there. So that'd be great.
And you also had this model. So tell us about this one.
[00:32:10] Speaker C: We build it to explain. I mean, we were reading the common questions that people were sending us through different channels, Email and Facebook and Instagram and all this stuff. And the main question was, why don't we have eclipses every month?
So if you try to explain just by talking, it's a little bit complicated, especially if you're referring to people with no previous knowledge of this. So we realized about this 3D model that we design it. And this is, I guess, the best way to explain, you know, the difference between on the tilt of the moon's orbit and the earth orbit around the sun. Why just at some points it may produce an eclipse. And actually it is a very interesting activity that we brought especially to kids and that we are also sharing with you as astronomy for equity Office to be used for different teachers. Right. And the sun flight program about how kids may produce their own eclipse and then become aware of what really an eclipse means.
That's the one, if I may say, we are using yardsticks and two difference. First, by the way, with a true scale about the size of planet Earth, moon and the distance between them. So the purpose of this activity is to align the yardstick with the sun with the real sun. And then you showcase the shadow of the biggest sphere and the small one. This is to produce a real eclipse. This is when the kids with their parents become aware of what really the eclipse is. And it's quite fun. I mean, you have to stabilize the yardstick and then you may observe the shadow of the big spur in the floor, floor. And then you are moving it slowly, step by step, taking baby steps, as Magda mentioned this. And once the kid reach with the shadow, the small spur, there is a sense of joy with the kid, with the girl, with the family. And it's part of the joy of the moment.
[00:34:26] Speaker B: And still at the eclipse, I think yes, you had some panels up showing the sun from different places.
[00:34:35] Speaker C: No, actually the main one, the image on the upper left from our telescope. It image that being broadcasted through Facebook and Instagram, not only from Trivo, but also from the zoo. We had more than a million and a half viewers for that event.
And as you may observe, there are some other squares. They come from images from different cameras at different animal habitats. So we were narrating how the manatees were reacting, whether if they were reacting or not to the eclipse. The elephants, the ostrich, the rhinos, the chimps, orangutans, and. And it was part of the, of.
[00:35:20] Speaker B: The, of the experience very much more advanced phase of the eclipse at this time.
[00:35:27] Speaker C: Actually, she is the aunt of Magda.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:35:30] Speaker D: Also family comes and joins most of the times and yes, she's my aunt. I think something, something that quote mock always is always telling us is that we need to take every opportunity and every space to. To engage people with astronomy. I think it's the name Kotamoke, the technical name is a. A smuggling contraband or no, that you say is like making astronomy outreach by a smuggling into other space. Like in this case the Sioux. So people who are interested in the sue now become interested in. In. In astronomy. So we are always. And especially quote the mock is always thinking about where is people already interested in. And we can also get. Get engaged with that.
[00:36:24] Speaker B: Absolutely. That's. That's what's needed. And here you've got some people, some. Some an audience probably never looked through a telescope before.
[00:36:34] Speaker C: Probably. Yes, they are flamingos. And as you may observe in this image, this is the reaction during the eclipse.
It may be not because of the decreasing sunlight, but as we prepare this, we read different scientific papers. Is because the decrease on temperature, which happens so sudden.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: Right.
[00:36:54] Speaker C: That's the main thing that first as maybe you may observe from the big lake, from the big stank, they come to the smaller one, which is the. Where they actually is like they shelter. Right. And so they are preparing to get to sleep during the. During the eclipse. As you know, eclipse is not part of natural evolution from several different species. So actually what they are interpreting from it is it's time to prepare to Go to sleep.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: And wrapping it up with the team, talking to the crowd. And there are some interesting visitors here as well.
[00:37:33] Speaker C: Lovely.
She was actually, she just came there with her family.
And I like to emphasize that when you are designing an event like this one, I mean, you are really bringing natural curiosity from everyone. Okay, so. Which is quite important to bring this kind of events because people are keen to collaborate on this.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: Here's somebody reporting on what happened to the zoo.
[00:38:05] Speaker C: The thing is, we designed some activity papers. We where kids should take a drawing of different species. What they were doing before the eclipse, during the eclipse, after the eclipse, and there they were sharing their findings with us. Quite interesting because I must say that a girl actually not there. He was a Japanese girl. So he was explaining to the audience the name of different species in Japanese. That was not designed. So it was part of what may happen when you, when you bring people to enjoy the moment. Of course, yes, part of it. Serendipity. That's the word I was looking for.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: Serendipity. This is the serendipities. If you could plan on serendipity, you'd be in a good shape. Yeah, you've been very successful in a lot of ways that other organizations haven't been in getting support.
Mag, Guys, I understand you are largely responsible for, for that you're the development person.
[00:39:06] Speaker D: Well, I, I just, I want to say every fundraising effort is a team effort.
So what I, what I contribute specifically is that I, I'm always engaged with the ecosystem of funders and international organization and foundations and, and even governments. So I constantly receive the information of what are the grant opportunities for TRIBU and other impact projects that we also are promoting.
So first is you have to be engaged with the ecosystem and information is key. So yes, I am like the person that is looking for those opportunities.
But something that is key for any project that wants to get funding is to have foundations and track record.
Like really being able to prove that your idea and your project, your goals are justified, that you understand the problem that you are trying to tackle and how your intervention or your, your proposal is going to contribute to the solution. Right. So. So yeah, because of our work in Prosociedad, which is the name, the brand of the organization that I founded, we have developed like all these steps with tribu, especially the theory of change that I mentioned before, which is actually in a nutshell, a methodology that will guide any organization, any person that wants to have a funded project of the strategic thinking around it, how your proposal is going to really achieve a goal and yet how you are going to measure that.
So, yeah, that is my contribution to this initiative of tribu.
And yeah, we've been pretty successful in this year. We have mobilized, I think around.
We were counting around 16,000, $60,000 for investment in the equipment and in the operation, which is very important as well, because sometimes funding for astronomy, we have seen they don't pay for the cost of the people who work in the projects. And we believe that this is a very huge limitation, especially for countries like Mexico and developing countries, that we don't have these big institutions like universities that of course, we have pretty good universities, but they are not engaged in astronomy. So we don't have this basic funding to pay for salaries and to pay for people to devote their talents.
So we have been able to also fund the work of the people that. That come to the. To the. To all these festivals. So of course we want to diversify. We are approaching a private sector and yeah, the community in general like to fund these projects. So we are counting on community support to keep on scaling this initiative.
[00:42:47] Speaker B: This is something that's really important for so many of the organizations around the world to do astronomy outreach like this, for the most part with their own money because they're just passionate about it, but they don't know how to approach potential sponsors. And the programs that. That I've done, the big worldwide ones, we provide resources for marketing and things like that, they can translate and use it. And it has the message on it how you get the audience who you should approach.
Not as much about getting sponsors because depends so much on. On the local culture and. And who's available there. But this is an important thing.
And there is one more slide here that you develop. You're gonna have to tell me about this one.
[00:43:40] Speaker C: Sure. We presented this one at cap, you know, the event that happened last year. And this is. I hope this could be useful for your audience. Most. Most of them astronomy teachers or people doing astronomy outreach. When you're trying to bring new audiences into astronomy, this may be. There's five words that come from the acronym sweat. May be the reasons why people do not approach to you or to the astronomy experience. Let me explain this quite fast. Skills. People think that if they don't know about astronomy, they cannot be part of some experience. So you need to explain them taking as Magdal just mentioned this taking baby steps, right? Or maybe with different contents, more friendly wealth. Well, people may think that if they don't have a telescope, there's no place for them in the event which is totally wrong. We already have about several telescope so there's no need to buy one. And every experience is free for the audience. And we we say this a lot through media because people have feared to be charged for become part of the experience because most of the experience that happened are have a certain price for them. A ticket which we don't have at all.
Emotion and this is maybe the most special part for Tribu. We have worked in this part with Bruno El Pirata.
It's more attractive for the family to approach to a circus function than to an astronomy event. I mean it is what it is. And then in the circus show Bruno is explaining them about astronomy. We'll always start the festival with the circus show. Once people are there and figure out how to make a difference about the different phases of the moon, how to stand the difference between a planet and a star.
And then they become more interested in the topic and then they approached where the telescopes are or where someone is giving a talk about something. And this is again how we use one of those words in this case Emotion to bring more curiosity from the people and to approach them to astronomy access and time. We do this by visiting different places, urban and rural areas. And again I hope this could be a useful tool for anyone watching this video to design different strategies again to bring more people or audience into their practice.
[00:46:17] Speaker B: Also they can contact you for more information as well.
And so that's really. You know, this is one of the more diverse programs that I've seen and people do different do it in different ways. Some of them are innovative and this is certainly one of them. And this is end diverse and of course I like the fact that you're doing it in places that have no resources for science and so on. That's really what I'm focusing on and ask Astronomy for equity now.
So yes, I hope hope to be down there and meet you guys in Guadalajara sometime maybe maybe later this year hopefully.
So thank you very much for coming on here. This has been fascinating and I wish you good luck with everything in the future.
[00:47:09] Speaker C: Mike, if I may, I'll be brief about. I like to emphasize two things on first we applaud for you and certainly for equity are doing in this podcast is quite valuable for us to know what other people are doing and that environment and we applaud your effort and this and also would like to declare that we are all in the crew. Everyone in the crew of Trivu are fans of you and your work and this is quite an honor for all of us.
[00:47:39] Speaker B: Well thank you very much. It's an honor to be able to and a privilege to be able to know enough people like what you are doing here and being able to present them to everybody. I. I do think it's really important. We all need to know what everybody else is doing and hopefully people are see.
The answer to the question we all get is why do astronomy. We have problems down here. Well, this is how you start to solve those problems in. In most of the world.
[00:48:09] Speaker D: Yeah.
Thank you also.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: Okay.
Thank you so much and good luck with the program.
[00:48:19] Speaker A: This has been another episode of Big Impact Astronomy. I'm your host, Mike Simmons. Jacob Sager is our technical producer. Our audio engineer is Ali Pelfrey. Big Impact Astronomy is produced by Astronomy for Equity, bringing astronomy to unserved communities worldwide.
This episode of Big Impact Astronomy was brought to you by Primalucha Labs. Prima Lucha Labs makes space exploration accessible for all and empowers communities worldwide through innovative educational astronomy solutions.
Learn more about Astronomy for Equity, including how you can Support us at astro. The number4equity.org.
