Egg shells and cartons, corks, toothpicks, actimeles, cans, buttons, cotton and even pine needles. Any material can find a new use before being discarded and can even be transformed into Saint Joseph, the Virgin or the Child to give life to curious recycled nativity scenes.
If Christmas is a time for family and excitement, especially for the little ones, it is now also ecological thanks to an initiative carried out by the Religion teachers of the Tomé Cano Early Childhood and Primary Center (CEIP) in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. , which has involved students and families in the creation of more than 200 births based on recycling.
If faith moves mountains, the imagination of this educational community has taken an original step with these original portals of Bethlehem that, until next January 7, can be visited in said center, located on Legazpi Street in the capital.
Pilar Moreno, teacher at CEIP Tomé Cano, explained that “the initiative arose from the Religion teachers, since the center is a member of the Erasmus Just Naturally project, where with schoolchildren from Lithuania and Hungary, healthy eating habits and recycling are promoted among students. schoolchildren. By uniting both, the idea was born.”
The teacher stated that “taking advantage of Christmas and, also, the commemoration of the 800 years of the first Nativity scene made by Saint Francis of Assisi in Italy, it occurred to us that we could involve the 400 students of the center and their families in the construction of these recycled births.”
“The result has been surprising and, furthermore, parents are grateful for an idea that has allowed them to have fun, while learning to reuse with their children,” the teacher stressed.
Small works of art with a religious theme that are part of an exhibition that presides over the center’s children’s library, which was inaugurated on December 10 and in which each student had to explain the making of their nativity scene.
Pilar Moreno added that the only requirement that the school placed on families was that nothing be purchased to make the nativity scenes, hence cloth, straw, wood, pine needles, foam rubber and even bottle caps to make the crowns of the Three Wise Men. , they will replace the material with the original.
