Social Service

Fundación dar Amor- Fundamor is an NGO that works with families all arround Cali. It started 27 years ago, focusing mainly on people carrying HIV. The organization currently has helped almost 90,000 people with different programs and services. I started doing social service in Fundamor when I was in 7th grade because I wanted to break the social barrier created by our developing society, and that does not let human beings see the world as a whole. Through the years, I have done multiple projects with the organization, these will be explained in the following.

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITY /2017-2020

Having worked with Fundamor for so many years now, opened my eyes to the reality of most people in Colombia, this helped me understand that I needed to give others the opportunity of living what I did. When I started 10th grade, I decided I would start a new extracurricular activity in my school, where students from 6 to 12 grade would have the chance of visiting Fundamor and living what I did since my school lacked of opportunities to actually serve. Ever since then, I have been working with over 50 students, visiting the foundation and working with children from one to five years of age, not only helping them directly through face to face contact, but helping Fundamor with projects like a new library, an orchard, etc. The program takes place every two weeks and we work in Fundamor for 4 hours every time.

Previous work /2015-2017

As mentioned, when I entered middle school, I decided that I wanted to start working with an NGO that could give me a safe atmosphere where I could get to know the world as it is. At the same time I realized there was a lot to the world that I didnt know, for which I started attending Fundamor with my friends once a month. From this experience, my love for social service became stronger and stronger every time, this inspired me to keep doing it and to start my own projects related to this area.

Modamor /2018

When I was in 10th grade, I had the opportunity to participate in a fashion show, this one was able to gather 36 million COP that where fully given to Fundamor. This fashion show worked with girls from my school and with a company called "Studio F" which lended all the outfits worn on the event. For over 6 months, each of the participants took common lessons of preparation that would lead us to organize a proper show in which we sold tickets to earn the money that was later given to the NGO.

Día de la galletica /2014-2019

This year I covered 5 years of participation with Fundamor on a program called Día de la Galletica. The purpose of this program is for volunteers from all over the city to help Fundamor gain money by selling cookies on different dates, visiting different shopping centers the NGO is able to recover the resources necessary to pay almost 1/4 of their long term liabilities every year. This program takes place twice a year, in December and June.

This year I started working as an organizer and coordinator in a Fundation called Conciencia Verde Colombia. This NGO started in Cali and it works with the goal of cleaning the city´s green areas, rivers, lakes and parks. This year we have already done over 6 cleaning sessions in the rivers of my city, the idea is for everyone to be able to participate in the sessions for which we make them public and whoever wants to attend can simply subscribe to a link in our page or show up to our common meeting points. Currently we are working with the government with the goal of abolishing or decreasing the use of plastic in our city´s "Feria de Cali" a big event done in December, in which during 1 week the city celebrates the new years coming. This project is being done because the celebration involves the whole city and it would be great to the ecosystem if the use of plastic could be reduced.

Techo is an NGO that works all around the world with the goal of fighting poverty. The organization has granted over 3000 houses to people in Colombia and works every day with different schools and companies to raise money so that more families can be helped. When I was in 10th grade I joined my school´s partnership with Techo, on both 10th and 11th grade I was able to participate in the collection of funds to build houses and in the actual construction. This year I am also working with Techo and although the construction is meant to be in April, I hope I can participate in this one as well. To be honest, out of all of the projects I have worked with, Techo is my favorite. With this organization I get the opportunity to change a families life, also I get to know more about my country´s reality and I get to learn from those who I am helping.

Soñar Despierto is an NGO that was created in Mexico but currently works all around Latin America and some countries of Europe. The organization has multiple branches to address different problematics, I have volunteered in their projects at least twice a year for the last 3 years, I do this to complement a little to society. I have always wanted to get deeply involved with this foundation but my tight schedule and amount of work (with school, sports and social service) has not let me wind up fully to this NGO.

Navidad es Jesus is a project that has also been winded to the Movimiento de Vida Cristiana in my city. The goal of NEJ is to give Christmas a different meaning to what we are used to. Working with children from all ages and conditions, the program communicates that Christmas is not only the gifts and the celebrations, Christmas is about giving to others and being involved with Jesus. As a volunteer in this program, I learned how to give out a message more explicitly, also I was able to work with many children, learning from all of what they have lived.

This program, just as Caja del Amor takes place mainly in December and through the past years I have gotten involved as a volunteer. This year is different, instead of being a volunteer to the program I am currently one of its organizers, helping set everything up for the new volunteers and the visits to different foundations where we give out the message of Christmas.

In December 2015 I got involved in my first Caja del Amor volunteering. This is a program that works through the Movimiento de Vida Cristiana in my city; they focus on selling empty boxes to people who are currently economically stable, these people will fill up the boxes with a list of things that are asked for (nonperishable foods, clothing items, toys, etc.) and will bring the boxes back to the volunteers in charge who are responsible of transporting all of the boxes safely to different gathering points. Needy people from all over the city, especially those who have applied for the program, will pick up the boxes that are given by the volunteers, taking one box for each family. The project is very nice because you get to give a family of scarce resources, an economical support that will help them during the first months of the new year.

I have attended the program as a volunteer every year since I was initially involved, helping with the different deliveries that are made all around December.

In 2018 my classmates and me traveled to La Guajira, a department in Colombia where water is very scarce. In Guajira we focused on helping children from a public school, we painted the school, we communicated with the children, teaching them our traditions and learning from theirs, we helped the teachers learn new things to teach the children... Regardless of what we did, the most important thing was all the change we were able to make, not only in the children´s lives but in ours as well, since what you learned here you would not have learned anywhere else.

I worked with Casa Colombia at the end of 2018, we threw an event where a girl named Valentina Pastrana (who has dwarfism and many health issues) gave an inspiring talk. The event took in almost a thousand people and it was made with the purpose of earning money to support the NGOs needs for one whole year.

I attended to Escuela Gaitán each Wednesday for six months during 2016. EG (Escuela Gaitán) is a small school outside my city, with the support of my school we went to the EG to teach children from ages 4-7 the most basic words in English, with the purpose of giving them the opportunity to widen their second language later on if they wanted to. In EG we taught the children English using different techniques, between these we played games, we had classroom hours and we used the ICT for programs related with the cognitive part of the child´s brain.

With my school we attended for 5 days in a small school in Boyaca, a small town in Colombia. The school was in need of a restauration so among most students in my grade, we focused on helping the school by painting it, decorating it and spending time with the students.