This past February 6, our multimedia magazine was awarded the Joaquín García Monge National Cultural Communication Award by the Ministry of Culture and Youth of Costa Rica. Every year this institution awards the people behind cultural projects in the fields of theater, dance, music, visual arts, audiovisual arts, literature, cultural research, journalism, cultural communication, among others. In the justification given by the jury to grant the award they state:

‘By means of creative strategies with great artistic sense, this multimedia magazine proposes a renovating and innovative path in cultural communication, based on contents that are relevant to the planet's current reality. Its vision is akin—in the context of the 21st century—to the Joaquín García Monge's spirit of universal coexistence and his magazine "Repertorio Americano", by encouraging a diversity of opinions and topics to be expressed through a contemporary proposal that unites ecology, literature, essays, documentary film, visual arts, photography, and is born and made from our country to the world. Furthermore, by contributing to the construction of a sense of identity and belonging connected to the landscapes that sustain us humanly and spiritually’.

The award is named after one of the most important Costa Rican writers and intellectuals of the twentieth century, Joaquín García Monge, founder of the Repertorio Americano, a periodic journal that became, during the first half of the last century, one of the most important Latin American forums for intellectuals, philosophers and artists of the time. García Monge's work was impressive, with more than 50 volumes published until his death, but even more inspiring was his disposition towards his work as an editor, and which this phrase by Manuel Antonio Valle represents very well: 

‘...his (Joaquín García Monge's) aim is not to make himself known, but to make us know each other, even if I live on one side of the continent and you live on the other.... Garcia Monge wants to achieve only one thing: to bring us together in a spiritual embrace.’

This award fills us with pride and motivation to continue working to bring you more creative nonfiction stories that offer more empathetic and solidary ways of relating with planet Earth. It also reaffirms the value of the collective work of three people who believe in an idea bigger than ourselves. Through the stories, we can create safe spaces for reflection, conversation and education about the ecological and spiritual crisis we live in, and mainly about how we can heal our sacred relationship with the Earth.