Page 24 - AMIGOE DEC 01 2020

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LOCAL Tuesday 1 december 2020

Monument Funds Aruba is turning 25

Continued from page 8 velopment of Curriculum of the Department of page Stichting Monumentenfonds Aruba.
Teaching. This was part of the project ‘monthly International cooperation is very important in
The maintenance work of the latter was initi- guest,’ which gives opportunity to different or- order for SMFA to comply with its works of main-
ated in August 2020, and is being executed by ganizations to get to know a little more of the taining Aruba’s monuments. SMFA has a good
the contractor Van Kessel Havenbouw NV. works of SMFA. relation with other colleagues from other Carib-
The restoration of this building is only for the fa- bean islands and the Netherlands.
cade. As soon as SMFA obtains an interested A beautiful project conducted by the results of
party in renting this building, they will move into the ‘monthly guest’ was the installation of the At the beginning of the year Director of SMFA
the 2nd phase of the restaurant based on the stair lift at the town hall building. Platform for Anne Witsenburg visited different monuments
needs of the renter. the Persons with Limitations held a meeting last with Minister Knops of the Netherlands to show
year in which they informed of their desire to him some of the most recent projects finalized
For the building at Weststraat 15, better known have more buildings accessible to the disabled by SMFA in San Nicolas such as Watertoren,
as ‘Casita Geel’ (yellow house) maintenance and one of them is the town hall. SMFA did re- Nicolaas Store and Uncle Louis Store and also
has been conducted and the inside of the search based on this information and was able visited the Forno di Kalki in Rancho.
building had been adapted according to its to make this a reality.
new renter which is Patio 15, which will officially Apart from this, SMFA together with Foundation
open in December 2020. In October 2020 the 5th edition of Wiki Loves BOEi of the Netherlands is conducting research
Monuments Aruba took place. A total of 742 on the water tanks at Kibaima, Balashi. This proj-
Another monument which got some restora- photographers participated. Ten photographs ect will be subsidized by the Ministry of OCW of
tion attention this year was Henriquez Pand at were nominated to advance to the next round the Netherlands. Finalization of this research is
Schelpstraat in Oranjestad. The building had which is the international competition which will scheduled for the first quarter of 2021. For this
been completely painted from the exterior, the take place in January 2021. project SMFA is being assisted by interns of the
walls have been fixed and in the interior has SUS Ateliers di Hogeschool Rotterdam.
been painted. The wooden balcony also has Because of the coronavirus pandemic, SMFA
been completely restored. was not able to conduct lectures at schools as 2021
The maintenance of the California Lighthouse usual. However, SMFA was able to prepare an 2021 will be a great year for SMFA. The foun-
will start in 2021. audiobook with the title ‘Un Raton den Stadhuis’ dation will be celebrating 25 years of existence
(A Mouse in the Town Hall) with the purpose to and is working on some projects to celebrate
Consciousness, Education and Cooperation introduce the word ‘monument’ to the children this with the entire community of Aruba. They
Another important part of the tasks of SMFA is to between the ages of 4 –to-8. SMFA sent this au- are aware of the challenges 2021 will also bring,
bring awareness and education. At the begin- diobook to all elementary schools of Aruba. The but with positivism and perseverance they will
ning of the year, SMFA was visited by the De- audiobook is also available on the facebook seek to preserve the past for the future!q