Help feed vulnerable families, COVID19 Cartagena

Thanks for all your support!

This project helped bring food and assistance to families in the isolated insular communities of Cartagena during the COVID-19 emergency. The goal was to deliver basic food provisions, as well as cleanup tools such as gloves and sacks, to more than 150 families in Punta Arena and Caño del Oro, who participated in the Environmental Volunteering and Humanitarian Aid Program. Families in both Punta Arena and Caño del Oro committed to cleaning up their town, streets, fronts and patios and effectively helped to save contaminated bodies of water, vital to the health of the entire island of Tierra Bomba and its communities. Fundación Bahía provided technical assistance and helped organize the different groups with local leaders to take environmental action and raise awareness in the communities. Thanks to daily food rations provided by SOS Cartagena for two months in Punta Arena and one month in Caño del Oro, Fundación Bahía was able to start the program. Families responded very favorably and then thanks to a most generous donation from Tamarin Foundation through Give to Colombia, Fundación Bahía was able to provide another 2 months of project with food provisions for 95 environmental volunteer families in Punta Arena. The community of Punta Arena, whose economy relied heavily on tourism, worked hard to improve habits and prepare itself for the end of the lockdown. After 4 months of intensive cleanup work supported by our program, the community was able to eradicate 6 critical dump sites, removing around 22 tons of solid residues from the island, plus 7 tons of glass and around 10 tons of recyclables, benefiting local recyclers.  

Children participated in our eco-sign workshops creating environmentally friendly signs and placed them strategically around the community. These eco-friendly signs have been the rave now the island has reopened to visitors!

Fundación Bahía donated the fish sculpture Guardian of the Ocean to serve as an artistic educational tool to encourage adequate residue disposal practices, separation at source and recycling. The fish sculpture also aims to warn on the dangers of plastic pollution in the ocean.

The environmental volunteer program was a success and culminated with artistic workshops and murals made from recyclable materials, thanks to the support from the Margaritas Foundation and the excellent artistic mentoring by Arte Terapia Mar.

Another great boost to the program was a very important fish donation from Antillana, thanks to which Fundación Bahía channeled and distributed 2,123 kilos of fish to all homes in Punta Arena and Caño del Oro, on the island of Tierra Bomba.

Finally, thanks to the amazing support from special benefactors, including Higietex, Astivik and BDP Colombia amongst others, SOS Cartagena and Fundación Bahía were able to gift t-shirts and a special Christmas lunch to more than 400 children in Punta Arena.

Thanks for an amazing year, very difficult and yet graced with the generosity and help of many friends and people from all over the world! Wishing you all the very best health, peace and happiness for this new year. We will continue to work in Punta Arena and help out insular communities around Cartagena, in an effort to strengthen environmental education and improve quality of life for present and future generations. We can all be guardians of the ocean! Please follow us on social media to learn of our progress in real time. Many thanks for your support!

Links:

• Educational program Clean Seas: Guardians of the Ocean!