| Dear friends of the El Rio Foundation, We wanted to focus this summer newsletter on what we have been doing in the last quarter to promote peace, build community spirit and teach conflict resolution skills along the Troncal del Caribe on the North Caribbean coast of Colombia. Working in a post-conflict zone certainly has its challenges but we are now more motivated than ever to continue to grow our community programmes to champion peace and provide spaces for different communities to come together in safe and positive environments. At all our activities, we have zero tolerance to violence and discrimination and a focus on team work and fun. However, it’s through our large community events, bringing young people and families together from different localities, that we have seen the most significant positive change in our participants. Children are more confident, are working better in teams, their communication has improved and they are also show more empathy. The single biggest impact of our community programmes to date is that our participants are much kinder to one another. |
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| We are very proud of our regular weekly timetable which includes over 120 hours of educational activities to 600+ children (with more hours in local schools now than ever before), which consist of our ten key community programmes, which you can read about HERE. However, we are focusing this newsletter on our most recent community-building events: Wednesday 3 April – The Guachaca Gender Equality Family Games supported by Amazon Colombia. To celebrate the Foundation’s ‘Gender Equality’ month with volunteers from Amazon Colombia and in partnership with Guachaca primary school, we organised a day of family activities for 100 children, 40 parents/care-givers and 10 Amazon employees. Please watch a short video about the day HERE. You can also click to see a short video about one of our gender equality sessions through our Wellbeing programme HERE. |
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| Wednesday 10 April – Tutoring pupils reward trip to Yay To celebrate the achievements of our Guachaca Tutoring group, 17 students, mostly aged between 7 – 13, enjoyed an afternoon at Yay sustainable resort hotel (Thank you Kelly and Guy), learning about permaculture and enjoying an hour in the plunge pool. This term, we have had the most regular participants at Tutoring ever (80+), the closest partnerships with local schools and highest attendances and engagement at our parents’ meetings. We thank La Vida, the Lata Foundation, Benchmark Holdings and our most recent sponsor the FIFA Foundation for their support of a programme that continues to grow. |
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| Friday 19 April – The opening of the mural ‘We belong to the Heart of the World’ This packed event was the culmination of two weeks of joint action between Costeño Social Foundation, the El Rio Foundation and 30 children from three local communities. It involved our Art and Environmental Education programmes. The objective of the mural is to celebrate the nature and culture of our area and strengthen the sense of belonging the participants and the local community feel. ‘Because we only take care of what we know and only take care of what we love, we invite ourselves to know more about this territory through art and by experiencing nature.’ – Andres Zuniga, Environmental Education lead teacher. The opening event involved a short dance by the Buritaca girls’ group (bringing the Troncal del Caribe main road to a standstill) and artistic and community activities run by the two Foundations. |
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| Friday 26 April – Super Sports Club at Buritaca High School Our largest festival event where over 290 children took part (in two groups) across five hours of team-building. Ten activities, eight year groups and an opportunity for all secondary school children in our local town to meet the Foundation, enjoy being active and have fun with their friends. Saturday 4 May – Ultimate Frisbee Troncal del Caribe Regional Tournament The standard of playing frisbee on the coast is now incredible. Daniel Maldonado puts his heart and soul into the development of Ultimate Frisbee and it shows. From no Frisbee at all to 50+ children playing Frisbee twice a week, building up to this high-quality tournament. Ultimate is also a sport that is self-refereeing so already it has built in the need for the conflict-resolution skills we champion. ‘For the second Troncal Ultimate tournament of the year, we invited senior players from the Ciclón club and the El Oso community to participate, alongside the children of La Troncal. By meeting these players, the children can see that training and discipline can bring many opportunities and benefits in life.’ – Daniel Maldonado, El Rio Games lead teacher. |
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| Saturday 18 May – Buritaca Football tournament supported by the FIFA Foundation We are delighted to share that the FIFA Foundation will be supporting four boys’ and four girls’ football clubs in our local area, helping to create leagues and regular tournaments, while at the same time strengthening our Academic Tutoring programme. The first of our match day tournaments was a great success with 30 children taking part and Real Buritaca coming out on top after a morning of friendly competition. |
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| Saturday 25 May – Dance Battle at La Perla hostel An unprecedented activity in Buritaca was when 45 children from different communities, who have been training for more than two years, came together to showcase their skills across many dance genres. The turn-out was incredible with parents and families supporting the dancers from preparation to performance. Please click HERE to see some of the dancers in action. ‘These experiences generate a breath of fresh air for the children and a motivation to continue preparing for their artistic and performing life. They support children to develop qualities such as self-confidence, camaraderie, the development of high self-esteem in addition to all the physical and mental benefits.’ – Laura Tomasa, El Rio Dance programme lead teacher. Alta Mart Art Collective cultural week (3 – 7 June) In the final week of term, we were delighted to support Alta Mart’s cultural week where the collective ran art workshops and invited artists to make murals around the town. The children who won the ‘dance battle’ performed joyfully at the main event. We will continue to support Alta Mart’s ‘Art for Peace’ initiatives going forwards. |
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| This term we are very proud of our brilliant team and the impact we have had promoting kindness and community spirit through our regular events. We are also motivated to be even more pro-active supporting local efforts and continuing to champion peace in our area. We look forward to the new term with huge energy and enthusiasm! We would like to say a big thank you to our partners and supporters for making all the above possible! We would also like to encourage anyone who would like to support our work, especially in promoting peace on the Caribbean coast, to get in touch with us at foundation@elriohostel.com. To help us connect with more partners, we now have our Community programme introductions in Spanish and are also regularly updating our YouTube playlist (Thank you Mel and Leon) with introductions to each of our lead projects. All ideas for potential funding are gratefully received 🙂 Thanks again and hope you have a brilliant summer, Felix and the El Rio Foundation Team. |
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