Gina Milady Cardona Londoño is an environmental administrator by profession, graduated from the Technological University of Pereira, but all her life she has been linked to music and has become a singer-songwriter, currently working on an environmental education project with music.
The project was born when Gina was studying at the university, so she decided to start a search for different ways and didactics to do environmental education, understanding that young people nowadays really like music and strategies must be created to attract the attention of these youths.
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
The singer-songwriter first began by implementing songs by other Colombian music performers such as bambucos and pasillos, but at one point she decided to start writing her own songs with all the experiences she had acquired throughout her career, working with indigenous communities, peasants, in the páramos and in the Andean region.
So she began to put all those experiences together to create her own environmental-themed songs.
A REPERTOIRE
His first environmental song is ‘Siembra’, he wrote it after collecting the experiences he lived during his professional training when he had the opportunity to learn about the oil exploitation process in Meta, as well as sharing with the Wayúu in La Guajira and while At the time, she was familiar with Cerrejón and the coal extraction process. These processes had an impact on the artist, who decided to capture it through music to vent her feelings and convey other perspectives.
During the pandemic, the composer gave life to ‘Monocromatico’, a song that denounces the affectation of monocultures on the biodiversity of the forest and the problems that peasants experience when moving from the countryside to the city, the project was carried out in conjunction with ‘Chinampa ‘ and ‘Corpocam’, an NGO from the municipality of Santuario, the production has a video clip that was made with the audiovisual production company Wocnex from Cartago and the music production company Koafal from Pereira, thanks to the internet they came together and virtually created the script, while that the lyrics were composed as a team with Andrés Ramírez.
Upon graduation, he joined the NGO Chinampa, an organization that has been working in the Barbas Bremen protected area for more than 10 years. With community processes through environmental education focused on the issue of ecosystem conservation. When Gina arrived in ‘Chinampa’ they began to work on the process ‘Los sonidos de mi vereda’ which has two versions and has been supported by the Ministry of Culture, through this project they have created collective songs with the children and young people who are part of this territory that corresponds to the La Vieja river basin in the upper part is the village of Yarumal, in the middle part the village of Altagracia and in the lower part the village of La Estrella Palmilla. As a result of this work, the songbook of ‘Los sonidos de mi vereda’ was born, composed of four musical themes, ‘Yarumitos’, ‘Altagracia’, ‘Mi Pequeño Paraíso’ and ‘El canto del monte’.
“With this group of young people we began to create these songs because they live and feel their territory more by being immersed in the path and next to the protected area, so we began to write these songs with them collectively with a focus on typical Colombian music. that is why these songs are bambucos and corridors” Gina Cardona.
‘El abuelo frailejón’ is another of his compositions that together with the group ‘Canto Rodado’, this project was also supported by the Ministry of Culture, part of the recording of the video clip that highlights the daily life of the peasants was in the páramo and in the Andean Forest, the audiovisual product was made by ‘Cuarto Rojo’.
“Sanctuary” is the musical work that is under construction by Chinampa and Corpocam and that also has the support of the Risaralda Governor’s Office.
Within its production it also has the participation and creation of the feature film ‘Sanctuary’ that seeks to rescue the myths and legends of the municipality around the conservation of the Tatamá National Natural Park.
This product had the participation of the ‘Ohana’ theater group from the same municipality.
MUSIC
Gina is currently preparing at the Conservatory of Music of the University of Caldas to take the test and be admitted to the music career at this university.