Love, food, education for 100 children in Bogota

Dear friends, thank you for supporting our experience and for following us on our social networks. There we recorded the daily life of our work with hundreds of children and young people in the south-west of Bogotá. We are already in the final stretch of 2023 and in this report we will tell you what we did in the last four months and what we want to do to close the year. What does this report contain? We tell you what we have done between July and November. The young students of the cooking school who are part of training group number 14 began their classes and will successfully complete them in December. In the work around mental health care for children and families, we develop cultural and recreational actions to safeguard quality time and care between household members. We received recognition for our work with the cooking program from one of our territorial allies. 

What have we done?In affection: The mental health campaign was continued. To this end, direct dialogue actions with children and young people continued to be developed from our psychosocial area. In addition, family recreation activities such as the soccer championship were carried out with families and members of the different programs. To strengthen capacities for emotional management and mental health care, aromatherapy workshops were held putting traditional medicine into action. For this purpose, workshops were held to learn about the properties of different plants that can contribute to people's well-being, through the consumption of teas, for example, chamomile, citron, valerian, among others. The young people from the cooking school made an ecological outing to the municipality of Choachí, neighboring Bogotá. In this space they achieved a first encounter with themselves through the tour of the fields and the recognition of the work of the peasants and “neo-peasants” who seek to contribute to counteracting the environmental imbalance. 

In nutrition: In this cycle we managed to carry out activities to improve diets in families through cooking workshops with different groups of children. In this way we impact the increase in skills, abilities and knowledge in more balanced diets. In the case of young people, and in the nutrition, basic techniques and Colombian cuisine modules, they managed to learn more about what it means to consume local products and its positive impact not only on their physical well-being, but on the contributions that increasing preparations with products grown in our country; This can help improve the environmental balance by diversifying the use of soils contrary to the trend of monocultures that have negatively impacted the quality of the land by reducing nutrients and the necessary and natural chemical renewal of the soils. 

In Education: In these months we develop actions to strengthen reading and writing skills in children through the promotion of reading. Furthermore, within the framework of the internship of students of the degree in social sciences, we achieved the development of project work that combined participatory action research where they recognized some problems in their neighborhoods and were able to make a critical reading of their reality through of the dialogue of knowledge and the investigation and consultation in books and newspapers on how these problems are recorded to broaden the view on these phenomena. In the case of the young people in the cooking school, so far they have seen 8 of the 10 cooking training modules. Through them they improved their skills in human skills in communication, learned much more about the practice of barista and improved skills to access better jobs. In this particular period and thanks to the coordination with a district government program called “Partners for Bogotá”, three young people managed to join our process and study as cooks. Due to the work that both parties do not only to provide technical tools to these young people, but also to accompany their life projects, a few days ago we received public recognition for our work. We hope in the immediate future to continue working with this program to open more and better opportunities for the youth of our sectors. Now Christmas is approaching and as a foundation we hold the traditional Christmas party where around 300 people participate. In this brief narrative you will find out what our campaign is: 

“Magic Christmas Chest” 

Around Christmas there are endless stories that contain magic, dreams, stories. Among these stories is how the gifts reach the hands of each person: a mythical character (who takes as many names as there are cultures in the world), very dressed and with the help of other characters, brings a detail carefully thought out for each person. . To achieve the goal, it is necessary to write a letter telling that “Spirit of Christmas” what we want and why we presume that there is merit to achieving the desired present. 

Well, today we propose to reverse the dynamic: we are going to tell you what we want to offer you in our “Magic Christmas Chest” and why taking it can make joy, brotherhood and a celebratory attitude more abundant in other people. That is, how merit is multiplied. First of all, our chest has a beautiful agenda that invites you to learn more about what we are as a PT Foundation. You will navigate through stories made of words and color that capture the essence of our work and the reasons to persevere in the decision to accompany life. Along with this, you can find a simple but heartfelt game of faces and stories that can be the perfect pretext to open dialogues in many scenarios around the life challenges we face as people and as societies. As symbols are fundamental to creating community, thirdly you will have a set of candles that inaugurates this time of enlightenment, of announcement of the Good News. There is so much Good News to tell and to create! You will also find a fourth component: some delicious snacks! Let us not forget that Christmas is also a fraternal dialogue full of affection around food. 

There is a fifth element: it is not in the chest, you put it. It is about the solidarity that we invite you to weave. Taking a magic chest home means making a financial contribution of $100,000. With your contributions, you help us to hold our traditional Christmas party with the children, young people and families that make up this experience. This is when merit multiplies! Cheer up! This can be a beautiful, delicate and creative gift to give at Christmas and it makes a lot, a lot of sense! If you want to be part of this celebration, we invite you to see our publications through social networks and this presentation that shows images of what we are offering for our campaign:  

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFz4uIrrtY/K6LVpyVTmCRBcUESTppc2A/watch?utm_content=DAFz4uIrrtY&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=editor

Links:

• "Magic Christmas Chest"