It is a surprise the news that La Caixa Social Work has decided close after August the Cosmo Caixa de Alcobendas. This is a closure with which the center wants to modify the program of Science in Society in the Community of Madrid and increase its impact and the number of beneficiaries. For this, it is rethinking how to relocate all the actions of scientific dissemination that until now were carried out in the CosmoCaixa using the Educaixa program.
The media reports that the 23 employees hired directly by the Social Work and currently linked to the Cosmo Caixa Madrid center will keep all their jobs and be relocated to other centers dependent on the Foundation. It seems that everyone else who works through subcontractors such as monitors and educators will be fired.
From La Caixa it is also reported that the Cosmo Caixa de Alcobendas has fulfilled an outstanding function as a meeting point between scientific knowledge and citizenship with interactivity and pedagogical character as hallmarks. We remember that visits to Cosmocaixa were around 300,000 people a year.
In Peques and Más we have commented many times because we have visited it frequently. We have been in the store, at the exhibitions, on birthdays, etc. and all experiences can be followed in the CosmoCaixa label below.
Although we are surprised, La Caixa's proposal is consistent and bets on the new project of development of scientific workshops in Madrid schools hand in hand with the program eduCaixa. With these actions in 2012 they reached the 1.1 million students from all over Spain.
The other headquarters of the Obra Social, CaixaForum Madrid, on the Paseo del Prado in Madrid, will become the reference scenario for the cycles of conferences, conferences, workshops and other dissemination activities. The Social Work will promote new initiatives for young people that will link Science with Art.
We will miss the CosmoCaixa and the activities and exhibitions that took place there although times change and it is necessary to rationalize where and for what it is invested. Although I do not know the EduCaixa program, and I am going to get to it, we must think that it can take science, technology and dissemination to many children through schools.
