Dear Friends of the El Rio Foundation, It’s been our most action-packed term ever and we are thrilled to share some of the highlights below. We have also been doing lots of work behind the scenes to help us connect with new funding partners for each of our lead community programmes for 2025. Please click HERE to see our new corporate partners pitch deck and HERE to watch short introductory videos to each of our lead projects. Please share far and wide. We are a reliable, responsive and pro-active, value-add partner and have a proud track record of success with all our funding partners to date, so we are very hopeful of connecting with some new opportunities soon. All and any help towards this goal is hugely appreciated! ‘Our partnership with El Rio Foundation has been a truly rewarding experience. Their commitment to the local community in Buritaca, Colombia, is evident in every aspect of their work. The recent activation we conducted together was a resounding success, thanks to their tireless dedication and exceptional coordination. El Rio’s programmes—whether in football tournaments and coaching, education, or community engagement—create meaningful, long-lasting impacts on the lives of young people and families in the region. Felix and his team are not only passionate but also highly professional, ensuring that every initiative runs smoothly and that the outcomes are tangible. They consistently provide transparency, regular updates, and clear communication, which makes them a trusted partner. Their creativity, particularly through events like the El Rio Games and cultural celebrations, has brought joy and opportunity to lots of beneficiaries. El Rio Foundation exemplifies the kind of grassroots organisation that changes lives, and we are proud to support them.’ – Christine Miller, Fifa Foundation

There is only one place to start for our Autumn round up. On Thursday 12th September, we ran a Community Football Activation day in partnership with the FIFA Foundation and it was one of the best days in our history. Of the 140 participants and six football coaches present, the enjoyment rating on average was 10/10! The week after the event, 226 participants turned up to our Foundation football sessions and have been coming ever since. A 222% increase on last year. Please click HERE to see some of the photos from the event showcasing the amazing Adidas football kits for each participant. A day the children (and our staff) will never forget!  ‘The truth is that the children of the Troncal need more events like this and it makes me very happy to be able to contribute my time and my experience. Thank you very much to all who made this dream possible.’ – Anuar, Las Cabanas football coach. And partnering with the FIFA Foundation has been a dream! When we first started our community sports activities, we had one football club a week for 30 kids. We now have ten sessions, a girls’ junior football league for the first time on the coast, boys and girls matches every week and two girls’ pathway clubs in local schools. And the feeling at the event itself was very special. ‘I loved it and really enjoyed playing with my friends. My favourite moment was when we received the uniforms and when we were playing. My dream is to win the cup!’ – Camilo, 10 years old.

We are also delighted to share our Academic Tutoring Impact report video from the first six months of the year – HERE. Thanks to our long-term partners La Vida, the Lata Foundation, Benchmark Holdings and newly this year the FIFA Foundation. The other big success of the last three months at Tutoring has been the introduction of Chess sessions, culminating in an all-community chess tournament. Congratulations to our champion Jose Bolivar, who also was a winner at the regional schools tournament on Friday 4th October.

If we hadn’t led with the amazing FIFA activation, we would have gone with the Adrenalin Addicts sponsored Ultimate Frisbee and helmet giveaway day. It’s not every day 20 motorcyclists surprise a regional frisbee tournament to promote motorcycle safety, hand out helmets and play some frisbee. A morning of fun and connection for all involved. The day-to-day of the El Rio Games multi-sports programme keeps going from strength to strength, with new multi-sports clubs in Buritaca primary school and in the Indigenous community of Quebrada de la Linea, added to our now 30 weekly sessions!

We’ve also run and supported two large Indigenous Community multi-sport festival days in Quebrada del Sol. To read in more detail about the importance of these days, please click HERE to read our Indigenous Community programme presentation (for English, Sports, Environmental education and Eco-tourism) and HERE for our ‘Strengthening Indigenous culture through Art’ project. Our Art and Environmental education programme has also shone this term with three large murals created in different communities to promote a sense of belonging for the children with the place where they live to inspire more pro-active positive climate action. ‘You can’t love what you don’t know, or defend what you don’t love. The big impact I have seen is the children’s desire to paint and reflect the landscape where they live. They want to leave their illustration as an imprint. They are proud to see it and are very excited to show it when it’s done.’ – Andres Zuniga, Environmental education lead. The regular art hikes have also been a huge hit. Please click HERE to watch a short video about how Profe Ami is using art to inspire her students about environmental issues.

Meanwhile our dancers have performed at a Wedding and at Presentation Kaby (to showcase their skills to other would be dancers in our neighbouring region) and we are looking forward to our first ever musical theatre production in mid-November (feedback below)! The Telas closure day was also an outstanding event, with 12 children joyfully performing an outrageous acrobatic display after months of preparation.

And Little Kids’ Activities continues to grow with 15 children regularly attending (the most ever!). Our amazing teaching leads have designed a course that combines education, fun and inspiration in equal measure. This terms highlights include a cooking class, team-working day and a wide variety of artistic workshops. If you are on the coast, we highly recommend popping into LKA. You will not be disappointed.

We also always try to be a platform to support external partners to bring expertise and enthusiasm to our programmes. This term, we are very proud to have facilitated five workshops in five communities (and very grateful to the course leads), including ‘Managing emotions through art‘, ‘Photography and painting on fabric’ with Galeria Controversia, ‘Rhythm and music’ with Mar Infinito, ‘Knowing our emotions’ in Los Linderos and finally ‘a picture book activity’ to improve artistic and literacy skills. If you or someone in your network would like to run an inspiring workshop for our participants, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We have also had the opportunity to add to our monthly training workshops with our staff, additional training sessions led by Alvaro Hernandez and Carmen Salvador in ‘Classroom strategies for keeping attention’ and ‘Impactful methodologies and recognising emotions.’

All in all, the last three months have been a whirlwind of fun and impact and we are incredibly proud and grateful to our exceptional team. We are also extremely excited at the opportunity to connect with external partners in the next three months to help us to continue championing peace on the coast and provide educational, sporting and wellbeing activities for all young people in our local area for 2025 and beyond. Thank you so much for your support. If you would like to find out more or have any ideas for possible funding avenues ahead of our big end of year push, please don’t hesitate to get in touch – foundation@elriohostel.com. Our El Rio Games fundraiser for 2024 is still live and £224 away from our end of year goal. Donations of any size are gratefully received – El Rio Games 2023 – Sports and arts club opportunities for every child in our local town 🙂 – JustGiving. Best wishes for a fantastic end to the year. Felix and the El Rio Foundation team