New York League of Puerto Rican Women

 

NEW YORK LEAGUE OF PUERTO RICAN WOMEN, INC.

We are currently accepting applications for our 2021 Scholarships.  These financial awards are granted annually to undergraduate Puerto Rican/ Hispanic women selected for their academic excellence and service to the community.

To be eligible, applicants must comply with all 7 of the requirements listed below,  A completed Scholarship Application form must be mailed to the P. O. Box above, by the deadline date of Monday, May 28, 2021, and an email a copy of the application, in pdf format, must be sent to Eunice_nylprw@yahoo.com, Lynettepm@gmail.com, and Rozmed@aol.com.  Applicants must meet all of the following criteria:

1. Must be currently matriculated as an undergraduate student in an accredited institution of higher education, having earned a minimum of 12 accumulated credits.

2. Must have maintained a minimum GPA of 3.0 with no failing grades.

3. Must demonstrate service to the community.

4. Must provide an official college transcript by the deadline date of June 11, 2021.

5. Must provide two (2) letters of recommendation from a professor, college advisor, employer, or supervisor.

6. Must email a 4" by 6" (minimum size) color headshot photo in high resolution, of the applicant in appropriate professional attire, with a neutral background, for inclusion in our Commemorative Gala Journal.  Email the photo to Eunice_nylprw@yahoo.com, Lynettepm@gmail.com, and Rozmed@aol.com.

7. Must be available to attend an interview with our Scholarship Committee.

The Scholarship Committee will review only those applications that comply with all of the above seven (7) requirements.  Essays should be written meticulously, and include the applicant’s educational and career goals.

Applications can be downloaded from our website, or requested via email to the three (3) emails listed above.

Please publicize this information to as many eligible students as possible.  For questions, please contact President Eunice Santiago at (347) 743-6066,  Vice-President Lynette Madera, (917) 806-6790, or Chief Financial Officer Rosalind Reyes-Medina, (917) 432-4043.

Sincerely,
Eunice Santiago, PresidentNew York League of Puerto Rican Women, Inc. www.nylprw.org13TH ANNIVERSARY SCHOLARSHIP GALA
THURSDAY, AUGUST 26, 2021
MARINA DEL REY IN THE BRONXy. 

Sincerely,  Eunice Santiago, President

For More Information or for a Scholarship Application Please Visit their Website

Download Membership Application at our website:  _www.nylprw.org_
(http://www.nylprw.org/)

NEW YORK LEAGUE OF PUERTO RICAN WOMEN,  INC.
P. O. Box 60337
Brooklyn, NY 11206-0337
https://www.facebook.com/nylprwinc

Ponce - La Perla del Sur

 The city of Ponce in Puerto Rico is one of the most breathtaking destinations in the Caribbean. Also known as “La Perla del Sur” or “The Pearl of the South”, the city is full of lovely neoclassical buildings, decorative colonial homes, and beautiful fountains. The city was founded in 1692 and was Spain’s southern region capital until 1898.

As Puerto Rico's second largest city, it has long been an important trading and distribution center for the Caribbean. Its port, one of the busiest in the Caribbean, has shipped agricultural products, textiles, electrical devices, and rum products around the world. Most visitors from the U.S. mainland travel to the island via flights that land daily at Mercedita International Airport.

 

Museo de la Musica Puertorriqueña

The city is sometimes called the “Museum City” for the large number of historical museums and cultural sites within its borders. The Museum of Puerto Rican Music and a School of Fine Arts are located there. It also holds the Ponce Museum of Art, an American Alliance of Museums’ accredited institution that holds the Caribbean’s most extensive art collection. Another prominent museum is dedicated to the historical development of the city and the people who made the city what it is today.

The beautiful Plaza de las Delicias downtown is seen as the heart of the metropolitan area with its many charming restaurants and shops selling locally made products. The historic Catedral de la Guadalupe stands in the center of the plaza, which also holds the Parque de Bombas museum, a century-old wooden firehouse that was previously the headquarters of the Ponce Fire Corps. Casa Alcaldía (city hall), the oldest colonial building in the city, and the Central Mercedita sugar factory are also located around the plaza.

The most stylish shopping mall in the city is Plaza del Caribe. The mall has six theaters, more than 100 shops, and an extensive restaurant area with a wide variety of local and international offerings. The city is also home to the historic La Perla theatre, which hosts regular performances, shows, and music concerts.

An excursion to the summit of El Vigia Hill gives visitors an amazing view of the city and nearby Caja de Muertos (Coffin Island). Serralles Castle, a beautiful example of Spanish Revival-style architecture built in the 1930s, is located nearby. This former home of the owners of the Don Q rum distillery is now a museum showcasing the history of the sugar and rum industries. Behind the castle is the Jardín Japonés, a stunning nature area containing ponds, trees, and bonsai.

Another fun place to visit is the boardwalk, La Guancha Paseo Tablado, which is a popular entertainment destination lined with restaurants and kiosks, Here, visitors can also find an old lighthouse built in 1887, several pristine beaches for soaking up some sun, and a pier with a regularly scheduled weekend ferry to an enchanting islet. Popular activities there include swimming, snorkeling, kayaking, and stand-up paddleboarding.

Hacienda Buena Vista is another destination that offers a distinctive insight into Puerto Rican history. This restored coffee plantation hidden between the mountains features a main house, slave quarters, and farm buildings along with exhibits showcasing the practices of the era. In October, group tours are offered where visitors can try their hand at picking coffee beans and roasting them. The famous Salto Vives waterfall is also located nearby.

There are several unique natural areas located a short distance from the city. Visitors can travel about 40 minutes to the Guanica State Forest to see endangered birds or go to the La Parguera Nature Reserve to see monkeys and colorful coral reefs. There is also the El Charco Azul swimming hole and Cayo Aurora, playfully called Gilligan’s Island, for swimming or snorkeling.

No matter what type of vacation you are looking for, “The Pearl of the South” has something interesting to offer. Its amazing architecture, interesting museums, delicious restaurants, and distinctive natural spaces makes it one of the best destinations in the Caribbean for travelers.

Report: Military cleanup in Puerto Rico islands slow-going

 

By DÁNICA COTO

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The reopening of hiking trails and various white-sand beaches on two tiny Puerto Rican islands long used as Navy bombing ranges and now popular with tourists will be delayed more than a decade, according to a federal report released Friday.

Cleanup efforts in Vieques and Culebra led respectively by the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will continue through 2032 at an additional cost of $420 million for a total of $800 million, stated the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

“Substantial work remains,” the report stated. “Challenges include logistics, the islands’ topography and environment, and the safety concerns around handling unexploded munitions. The Navy also faces challenges on Vieques with community distrust of the military handling cleanup efforts.”

So far, crews have removed munition including 32,000 bombs, 12,000 grenades and 1,300 rockets from Vieques, where the U.S. government relocated residents when the Navy began using the island as a training range in the 1940s. Meanwhile, crews have cleared more than 5,000 unexploded ordnances since January 2020 in Culebra, where the military ceased all activities in 1975. An unknown number of munitions remains on both islands located just east of Puerto Rico as teams use tools ranging from machetes to drones to help clean the area.

In addition, the Navy identified perchlorate in the groundwater in at least one site in Vieques, where it operated a training range on 14,500 acres until its closure in 2001. The area was later designated as a Superfund site believed to contain mercury, lead, napalm, depleted uranium and other contaminants.

The GAO said that substantial work remains to be done in one site that covers some 11,500 acres underwater and extends from Vieques’ shoreline to a depth of 10 to 15 feet. Meanwhile, cleanup at 14 of 15 former military sites in Culebra will continue through fiscal year 2031, the agency said.

The report noted, however, that the U.S. Navy expects some 5,000 acres in Vieques might open by 2021 for hiking and other activities.

Overall, the report’s findings are a disappointment to many of those who live in Vieques and Culebra and to Puerto Rico’s government, whose robust tourism sector represents only 7 percent of the U.S. territory’s economy but has remained afloat despite a more than decade-long economic crisis. The beaches that are open in Vieques and Culebra attract tens of thousands of tourists a year, and officials were hoping to increase that number.

According to the GAO report, “(federal) officials told us that the beaches and coastlines present a challenge because some beaches, for example, are open to the public, and closures need to be coordinated with local officials, potentially affecting tourism.”

A couple of locals and tourists have been injured across the years by live munition, including a young girl who was burned after picking up an old shell that contained white phosphorous. Police at the time said officials found six live bombs near the shell.

Another challenge to cleanup efforts is the weather, with officials stating that crews have to sometimes resurvey sites to ensure that a hurricane did not push munitions into a previously cleared site.

The cleanup, in addition to the longtime presence of contaminants on both islands, have angered many locals who blame the U.S. government for their health problems. The Navy has agreed to limit controlled burns to two acres a day, and it expects to start using a closed detonation chamber late this year, something that locals had been requesting for a decade, the GAO said.

The new mayor of Vieques, José Corcino, did not return messages for comment.

The U.S. government has said that past military actions and ongoing cleanup efforts pose no risk, but many have disputed those findings. Last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded a grant to the University of Massachusetts-Boston to launch a three-year assessment of environmental health risks in Vieques.

Puerto Rico to reopen historic church after long restoration

 By DÁNICA COTO  March 12, 2021

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The construction worker stood on his tiptoes and tried to arrange a crown of thorns on a statue of Jesus while architect Jorge Rigau fired a flurry of directions from beneath the ladder.

“Grab it like this and move it just a bit,” he said, motioning with his fingers. “Move it to the right, but don’t lower it.”

It was one of the final touches on a detailed restoration of the second oldest surviving Spanish church in the Americas, whose construction had begun by 1532 on land donated by famous explorer Juan Ponce de León and whose base was erected atop an Indigenous settlement.

The church was built for a Dominican convent where the renowned Spanish priest Bartolomé de las Casas once lived, served as shelter during an attack by the Indigenous Taínos, became Puerto Rico’s first high school and was damaged by a cannonball during the 1898 Spanish-American War in which Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the U.S.

But the San José Church — surpassed in age only by the Spanish cathedral in the neighboring Dominican Republic — was shuttered in 1996 due to serious deterioration. San Juan’s own cathedral dates to 1521, but the original wooden building was destroyed and the current structure dates to 1540.

The $11 million restoration became a personal project for businessman Ricardo González that took nearly two decades to complete. Many thought it would fail due to funding problems, the lack of an original blueprint to provide guidance and widespread deterioration including termites, pigeon droppings and tree roots that had pierced the church’s Gothic-style nave whose ribbed vault was once described as “a grand accomplishment rarely seen outside Europe.”

González, who is active in the Catholic Church, volunteered to help oversee its reconstruction in the early 2000s with permission from Msgr. Roberto González, the archbishop of San Juan. He figured it would take one year to complete.

But as workers probed with radar and laser technology and physically peeled away the church’s layers, they uncovered centuries-old murals and architectural techniques once used by the Romans. Ricardo González realized he faced a deep and lengthy restoration process.

“When we started on that, there was no turning back,” he said.

In 2009, he founded the Patronage of Monuments of San Juan, Inc. to raise more funds for the project. Donations ranged from a couple of quarters to large amounts given by businesses, nonprofit organizations and wealthy Puerto Ricans.

Actor Benicio del Toro joined the pleas for donations as the building was added to the 11 most endangered historic places listed by the U.S. National Trust for Historic Preservation.

For years, tourists and locals had all but given up on being able to once again visit the site.

On a recent visit to the church, González’s eyes teared up.

“Every day I walk through there and get emotional,” he said as he stood on the roof and gestured at the building. “I’ve seen the movie, you know?”

It began, he said, with National Park Service experts showing construction workers how to use lime in accordance with the church’s original workmanship. Workers then had to chip away the concrete that covered the walls of the nearly 17,000-square-foot church bit by bit, in tiny sections to avoid damaging what might be below.

Later, experts were hired from abroad to restore murals and other art, including armored mermaids painted in the corners of one chapel.

The renovation was halted only three times in nearly 20 years: briefly after 2017′s Hurricane Maria, during last year’s pandemic lockdown and in 2008, when the lime supplier temporarily ran out of material.

Rather than face that problem again, González decided the workers — many of them from the Dominican Republic — would learn how to make their own lime, a lengthy process that requires aging the mixture. Instead of horsehair once used to help bind such material, González opted for strips of fiberglass.

They shunned the easier but less authentic concrete used during a prior restoration.

“The cement does not allow the walls to breathe,” he said, noting that humidity played a role in the deterioration of the church, which was built near the ocean atop an Indian settlement at the highest point of San Juan’s historic district, known as Old San Juan.

The church and its walls have survived a lot over the centuries, said Archbishop González, who is not related to the businessman.

“It’s a wonder,” he said as he scanned the church while sitting on one of the pews that will be used for Masses after the opening on March 19.

Restorers intentionally left the church’s history exposed in some areas: centuries-old, clay-colored walls and columns as well as faded murals and a niche that once served as the original confessional. A slightly elevated line inside the church’s entrance outlines the shape of the original roof. The restorers framed the area where the cannonball hit during the 1898 war.

“We let the church talk to you,” Rigau said, adding that visitors “will find witnesses, ghosts, memories, scars.”

But at least one mystery remains. All the figures depicted on the church’s gilded altar have been identified except for one: a woman with flaxen hair in the upper left-hand corner holding a palm frond, which indicates she was a martyr, but offers no other clues.

The young Puerto Ricans returning to the land

Officials Seeking Answers to Puerto Rico Telescope Collapse

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The National Science Foundation said Friday that it could cost up to $50 million just to clean up the debris at a renowned radio telescope that collapsed last year in Puerto Rico, adding that investigations into what caused its cables to fail are still ongoing.

The update is part of a report that the federal agency, which owns the telescope, had to submit to Congress as the investigation continues into the Arecibo telescope. It was until recently the world’s largest radio telescope and was used to study pulsars, detect gravitational waves, search for neutral hydrogen and detect habitable planets, among other things.

The NSF noted that results from the forensic evaluations by engineering firms, including mapping the distribution of debris, won’t be ready until late this year. In addition, the NSF said it asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to launch an independent and expedited study into what caused the telescope to collapse.

“Ensuring safety has continued to be the NSF’s top priority,” the report stated. “This includes not only the safety of personnel on the site, but also the safety of the environment in the area and the need to address concerns about historic and cultural preservation.”

Estimated cleanup costs range from $30 million to $50 million, with crews so far sampling soil and excavating areas contaminated by hydraulic oil. The telescope is located in Puerto Rico’s karst region, which serves as an important water source and contains the island’s richest biodiversity.

The NSF said officials also plan to analyze soil and water and prevent sediment and pollutants from migrating.

Meanwhile, the University of Central Florida, which manages the telescope, is charged with screening the debris to identify any equipment that could be reused or possibly displayed at the site or at another museum.

“All scientific infrastructure that can be utilized is being saved,” the NSF said.

The federal agency said it’s still evaluating whether to repair any damaged technology that could be saved. Some technologies are still in use, including two LIDAR facilities used for upper atmospheric and ionospheric research such as analyzing cloud cover and precipitation data.

The dish was damaged in August when an auxiliary cable snapped and caused a 100-foot gash on the dish, breaking about 250 of the dish’s 40,000 aluminum reflector panels and damaging the receiver platform that hung above it.

Then in early November, a main cable broke, with engineers warning that further cable failure would likely be catastrophic.

A month later, the telescope’s 900-ton receiver platform and the Gregorian dome —a structure as tall as a four-story building that houses secondary reflectors— fell more than 400 feet onto the dish.

It was a crushing event for scientists around the world who had been using the telescope for nearly six decades.

BoriFeria

 

¿Qué es BoriFeria?

Saludos Amigos:

Le presentamos una sinopsis de cómo fue creada la Iniciativa de BoriFeria.  Esta Plataforma surge por una inquietud de nuestra artesana Wanda Ivelisse Ramirez mientras buscaba alternativas para poder ser resilente dentro de la pandemia y a la vez ayudar a otros. Pensando que el arte no podía morir y buscando herramientas útiles, le hace el acercamiento a otro artesano, Jonathan Rivera, con mayor entendimiento en tecnología y a otras dos personas más, un artesano de nombre Fernando Cordero y una Boricua residiendo en tierra extranjera.  Con una plataforma digital, unen fuerzas para crear BoriFeria. Los cuatro con diferentes talentos, pero con una misma visión de ayudar a la familia artesanal de forma gratuita. De las situaciones difíciles nacen grandes ideas. Donde no hay otro camino que reinventarnos, de ahí surge BoriFeria. La Plataforma que tenemos los artesanos puertorriqueños para llegar a cualquier parte del mundo, una puerta para transformar lo que hasta este entonces era imposible, lograr convocar a tantos artesanos en una misma Feria Virtual Interactiva.

La población artesanal en nuestra isla de Puerto Rico, se compone de alrededor de 20,000 artesanos y el 80% aproximado de la familia artesanal, el arte es su única fuente de ingreso.  Algunos de estos artesanos son afiliados a diferentes organizaciones como la Hermandad de Artesanos, La Federación de Artesanos y otros más dependiendo el municipio donde residan, pero todos han sido golpeados con la pandemia, no importa quién sea o donde nos encontremos, hemos sido afectados de una forma u otra.

Nuestra página se dedica exclusivamente a promover, apoyar y ayudar a la comunidad artesanal de la isla.  De una manera sencilla, a través de salas individuales en , convocamos a los amantes del arte-sano a Ferias Virtuales Interactivas así como el proyecto de Mall Virtual Artesanal.  También tenemos presencia en Facebook e Instagram. Somos una entidad sin fines de lucro registrada en el Departamento de Estado, de esta manera solicitamos apoyo a entidades y la comunidad para poder darle validar y reconocer a nuestros artesanos. La métrica utlilizada para el reconocimiento de los artesanos será medida por la evaluación de los clientes.

Las salas de cada artesano emulan las mesas que usted encontraría en una feria presencial.  Las ferias virtuales coordinadas en itinerario por día a través del portal cibernético, le provee alternativas con la visión de ser virtual y si en algún momento se abre la opción presencial nuestros artesanos podrán seguir ofreciendo una alternativa diferente a sus clientes, virtual y/o presencial o ambas.  Pero en vista de la realidad que estamos enfrentando, BoriFeria vino para quedarse ya que parece muy lejana la realidad de volver a vivir lo que llamábamos ‘una vida normal.’  De esta manera, le extendemos una cordial invitación a que sean parte de este maravilloso proyecto, BoriFeria.  Pueden encontrar nuestra agenda de la propuesta artesanal en www.boriferia.com. Únanse a nosotros y hagamos la diferencia.

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Attentamente,

Administración de BoriFeria Corporation