Give 2300 Colombian Children a Reason to Smile

Formula Smiles Foundation have had the priviledge to be helped by a group of friends and CEO's of some of the biggest companies in Colombia and worldwide who create a campaing to help Villa Lorena's Project in Villavicencio City.

We would like to share with you the description of the project:

"A group of friends born and raised in Colombia came to the point in life where we want to take our philanthropic quest to the next level. Aware of the moral obligation we all have in leaving a positive vestige in other human beings and especially in children, we now undertake this path; which holds as main target and driver helping Colombia out of violence and poverty. Our common understanding is that through education and sports we can open infinite doors of possibilities for children, and more importantly, can give our little grain to support this audacious journey.

What do we want to accomplish?

Our goal is to raise US $42.000 to support Fórmula Sonrisas, a foundation created in 2003 that supports education, well-being and self-esteem through the practice of sports for low income children. 42 friends will run The Miami Marathon to collect US$42.000. We want to collect this money by February 2, 2014. The raised resources will be donated to benefit the boys and girls of the Villa Lorena chapter. Villa Lorena is a neighbourhood in Villavicencio´s foothills with a strong history of violence and poverty (Villavicencio is the capital of the Meta Department, one of Colombia’s main oil and gas areas). With this contribution (US $42.000) we will ensure 100% sustainability for more than ONE THOUSAND CHILDREN at the project at Villa Lorena for ONE YEAR."

After the Marathon of Miami, we organized a Marathon with the children of Villa Lorena's project and their community in order to announced the donation we received for them. The event was amazing because we ran with the people of 42X42X42 and with our founders, Juan Pablo and Connie Montoya who were absolutely happy and proud to receive support from such a group.

These are their opinions about the event:

JPM: "It was an amazing experience. You really don’t appreciate what we have until you see the conditions these people live in and they are still smiling and enjoying life. It was great to see the support of the kids and the whole community and their belief and commitment in what Formula Sonrisas does."

Connie: "Running and sharing time with the kids of Villa Lorena, Meta was an amazing experience. The opportunity to share with them, see their enthusiasm, smiles and fitness level is a surprise and it really motivated us to continue working for and with them."

Enjoy the pictures and don't miss the opportunity to continue helping to improve the qualiy of life of Colombian children.

We are privileged to share with you, our partners, the success we had last year, when we set TWO main objectives:

1. Implement SPARK methodology in the Educational Area:

Our beneficiaries were part of Physical Education lessons through an American Program (USA), which was adapted not only to Our country but also to each place, region, and culture where it was implemented. For example, when we taught about music, the participants had the opportunity to connect with their our music, like Dancing “Vallenatos” in Cartagena, “Reggae" in San Andrés and “Joropo” in Villavicencio.

The methodology caused great impact on children's attention and their participation in each class was growing. The teachers were very happy and totally satisfied seeing the progress of the beneficiaries in their discipline, commitment, punctuality and their fitness.

2. Strengthen each of our areas (Educational, Sports and Recreational) through the Values Program:

- Educational Area: SPARK handles many activities that develop social skills in children. These activities and the work of our psychologists and social workers were fundamental to result in better performance in our beneficiaries.

- Sports Area: through the methodology “Sport for Peace and Education” our children didn’t fight when they were in the field. They didn’t argue violently about mistakes the other’s made. "They shared the ball" to girls and younger kids, they didn´t said bad words, they helped others in diferents occasions when necessary. The Beneficiaries of Formula Smiles play fair!

- Recreational Area: recruiting social workers allowed the children found a new best friend and in addittion to the recreational activities they had with their families and the community, they received an specialized care to solve their family problems so they could improve their relationships.

This year objective was not to grow in the number of beneficiaries while we improved our programs but despite that, our coverage did not decrease and instead of that we had more children interested in being part of our Foundation which shows us the great impact we has made in the community so more people want to improve their quality of life through sports