Connecting Generations: Strengthening ties through education

Colombia

Founded in 1984, the Alfonso Casas Morales Foundation for Human Advancement is a non-profit organization created in response to a need of service and collaboration as community solutions to the social problems surrounding the school Gimnasio Campestre.

The Foundation is structured today around efforts to promote human dignity and social transformation from a humanitarian perspective, where the individual has a unique and unrepeatable value and possesses great abilities and virtues to be developed. The non-profit is located in a vulnerable sector of northern Bogota in the neighborhoods Santa Cecilia and Cerro Norte.

Problem

The district schools in the zone address the learning of youth as an academic process, ignoring the fact that humanity is multidimensional and that learning should be as well. Following this trend, the current social environment easily limits future opportunities and the possibility of a solid and sustainable life as a consequence of not providing adequate tools and skills.

Project

The project seeks to promote societal participation among girls, boys, adolescents, youths, adults, and their families. Participation among peers and within communities is imperative in personal, institutional, and familial development. Through activities, the project allows participants to recognize social context, become social actors, and strengthen intergenerational relationships to decrease vulnerability.

Comunidad

60 boys, girls, adolescents and youths

68 adults

100 families

volunteers involved

"If you ever want to discover the world, be a teacher. You will not find any school, university, or job that will transform you and be a service to society as being a volunteer like this. The world is for those who dare to make a difference!" Sofia Jacob, Graduate in Philosophy and History