Story Riders is a place-based and culturally-relevant pedagogy afterschool program which aims to increase children's well-being through bicycle riding, cultural and environmental awareness, and oral history documentation. Story Riders (SR) primarily serves children in 4th and 5th grades in underserved communities throughout New Mexico.
Story Riders begins by recruiting a group of 10 to 12 children to participate in the program. First, children and their parents receive bicycle safety and maintenance trainings to ensure continued success in bicycle-related activities beyond the duration of the program. The bicycles are provided by SR to children to ride througout the program, then are gifted the bicycles once the semester-long program is over. To ensure students' continued success in cycling, parents receive free bicycles as well.
Once safety and maintenance trainings are completed, children then get the opportunity to ride off-campus with SR instructors. This allows for real-world cycling experience, including opportunities to practice obeying cycling laws and practice repairing flats, loose chains, etc. Once every couple of weeks, Story Riders interviews elders from the community then turns those transcripts into edited pieces which are displayed at the school for parents, teachers, and other students to read. Others interviewed include envirnomental scientists who present on the importance of taking care of our natural places, like the Bosque, and artists, who conduct workshops with the children. All interviews and presentations take place outdoors.
The Center of Southwest Culture (CSC) was founded in 1991 as a nonprofit organization to help develop healthy Indigenous and Latino communities through economic development initiatives and educational and cultural work. CSC provides bilingual economic and educational initiatives to low-income, underserved Indigenous and Latino communities. These initiatives include 1) small business development, 2) cultural/environmental education, and 3) fiscal sponsorship and nonprofit services to groups that also serve low-income and underserved communities in New Mexico. CSC works to develop Indigenous and Latino communities to enable them to break through barriers that inhibit their economic and educational success.
505 Marquette Avenue NW, Suite 1610