The Zayante Institute’s first major initiative is the Club Familiar de Ciencias — Family Science Club.

Club Familiar de Ciencias: Océanos Adelante is a bilingual program that seeks to create better futures for Latino, minority, and low income parents and children by increasing their social capital through participation in ocean science inquiry, artistic depictions, and conservation activities. Art is included since it is a necessary tool for visualizing objects in several dimensions, recording data, and designing technology. The program seeks to inspire children and parents to take an interest in science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) disciplines and careers.

Club Familiar de Ciencias: Océanos Adelante empowers parents and children through the three E’s: Exposure, Experience, and Expectation. The project is based on a faith community outreach model that reaches whole families and extended families directly and provides for higher expectations and ongoing community support. Parents and children will increase their social networks and social capital as they are connected to professionals and college students in the STEM disciplines as well as digital and fine artists focused on science and the environment.

Art is a key component in this initiative for environmental education of Latinos, drawing on the work of José González. González calls his approach culturaleza – a combination of cultura and naturaleza. González defines it as “The mestizaje of art, culture, and the environment/nature.” Mestizaje generally refers to the creation of the Mexican people as a mixing of European, indigenous, and African peoples. The use here implies another creative synergy. See examples at http://www.josegagonzalez.com/culturaleza.html

The Zayante Institute is a non-profit organization under the fiscal sponsorship of the Romero Institute, a 501 (C) 3 not for profit corporation. Dr. Randolfo Pozos and Dr. Kathleen Brewer de Pozos founded the Zayante Institute to promote individual and social happiness, health, and holiness as the fulfillment of human potential. Randy and Kathy are anthropologists who have spent most of their careers advocating and creating access to health and human services for marginalized groups, including the Lakota Child Rescue Project, the National Hispanic University, and the Nepal Blindness Project.

Randolfo R. Pozos, Ph.D. and Kathleen Brewer de Pozos, Ph.D. are both are graduates of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, where Randy majored in biology and philosophy and Kathy majored in biology and Spanish. They are both members of Alpha Sigma Nu, the Jesuit University honor society focused on scholarship and service.

Randy received a master’s degree in public health planning and administration from U.C. Berkeley in1976 and a doctorate in social cultural anthropology from U.C. Berkeley in 1980. Kathy received her doctorate in 1980 in medical anthropology, with a sub-specialization in anthropology of religion, from a joint U.C. Berkeley and U.C. San Francisco program.

Since completing their degrees, they have worked as management consultants in healthcare and as insurance agents. More recently they have worked in medical practice development, sustainability and online education.