Fundacion Biblioseo is building the first Culinary Arts Laboratory in rural Bogota, Colombia, to train 80 youth each year in gastronomy and food entrepreneurship. Since 2018, we have trained more than 400 young people and supported the sale of 30,000 artisan food products. We seek US$12,000 to build a certified 120-square-meter facility that expands access to technical education and income-generating opportunities for rural youth.
In rural Ciudad Bolivar, south of Bogota, more than 2,800 youth aged 14-20 lack access to technical training, employment opportunities, and entrepreneurship tools. This exposes them to social risks that perpetuate poverty. No local infrastructure exists for food transformation, traditional cuisine, or gastronomic culture as pathways to economic autonomy-skills directly tied to the agricultural resources their own vereda produces.
The Laboratorio de Gastronomia builds hands-on kitchen infrastructure at the Biblioteca de la Creatividad, letting youth train in food transformation and entrepreneurship using local resources. It complements nearby schools for 10th-11th graders, links training to income generation, and leverages Biblioseo's proven partner network (SYG Arquitectos, Estudio Ardila, CSR allies) that built prior spaces on-site-turning cultural and agricultural knowledge into sustainable livelihoods.
The Laboratorio de Gastronomia positions Vereda Quiba as a benchmark for rural entrepreneurship, breaking cycles of poverty for generations of youth. As graduates build food-based ventures, the model multiplies: strengthening the local economy, inspiring replication in other excluded territories, and drawing sustained interest from universities, corporations, and funders-proving that peripheral communities can generate lasting productive, cultural, and economic transformation.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
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