I first started taking my children to Guatemala when they were just one and five. It was an idea born on Cortes where two of my friends announced they were going to spend three or four months with their adopted son, so he’d have a chance to get better acquainted with this part of his heritage. Two of the first friends I met after moving to Canada had themselves just moved there to start a Children’s Village and I was excited to visit them. So, suddenly, I was moving to Guatemala for fourth months without my husband and without knowing enough Spanish to do more than order “Uno taco por favor.”
Continue reading The View from a Guatemalan Children’s VillageAll posts by Manda Aufochs Gillespie
Invest In Your Community: Using Your Money For The Benefit Of Cortes

Originally published on Cortes Radio.ca
Small business owners and entrepreneurs struggle for money everywhere. Yet, this is perhaps more true in rural communities than anywhere in the developed world. Adam McKenty, head of Cortes Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA), shared a creative solution that is allowing people to invest their money in their local communities while providing capital for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
Continue reading Invest In Your Community: Using Your Money For The Benefit Of CortesA Practical Understanding Of Play & Some Gardening Tips

On today’s Folk University Talk Show, Registered Therapeutic Counsellor, Hayley Newell shares with us a deeper scientific and practical understanding of play. By definition play serves no practical purpose. Yet, it is anything but valueless. It lays the foundation of a child’s cognitive development, contributes to their physical health, services an opportunity to work through traumatic experiences and develop emotional resources, and helps kids practice healthy social interactions. The brain doesn’t know the different between real and imagined experiences so play can set the foundation for a great deal of future development.
Continue reading A Practical Understanding Of Play & Some Gardening TipsKaren Mahon Carrington Talks About Climate Hope

On June 5th at Folk U Talk Show, Karen Mahon Carrington joined host Manda Aufochs Gillespie to talk about her climate hope: what it is and how it inspired a new organization and movement.
Karen defines hope as: “the refusal to give up on love.” This idea inspired an essay I wrote called The Alchemy of Hope (https://mandagillespie.com/hope/)
Continue reading Karen Mahon Carrington Talks About Climate HopeForest Therapy And Its Many Benefits.
Originally published on Cortes Radio.ca

In this addition of the Folk U Talk Show, Sobhana Dilani Hippola, certified forest therapy guide, joins host Manda Aufochs Gillespie to discuss forest therapy and its many benefits. This was part of the Nature is Good For You series on CKTZ done in partnership with Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI), Folk University, and the Cortes radio partners Cortes Currents and Cortes Community Radio.
Continue reading Forest Therapy And Its Many Benefits.