By Maria Bautista | Operations Manager
We cannot be doing better during this year. That is why we are very proud to share with you some highlights which reflects how have we are making more than 5000 Colombian children smile.
February
When: The 14th
Where: at the Sofitel Santa Clara Hotel
Why: to discuss the best ways to showcase the results our project has achieved over the years to our donors and partners.
Who: Staff of the Governor’s and Mayor’s
offices, members of the “Loma Fresca” community action board and other special
guests who have supported and followed our work in Cartagena.
Thanks to the participation of all of those present and the unconditional support the Sofitel Santa Clara Hotel has always offered to us, the breakfast resulted in a number of agreements and ideas for furthering our projects’ growth.
As you may know, for the Formula Smiles Foundation it is fundamental to work on the formation of values through its sports program. For that reason, in Cartagena’s project we held a workshop named “Seamos Solidarios” (Let’s Show Solidarity) that consisted on a mock newscast in which our boys and girls used anecdotes and experiences to explain the importance of solidarity to their peers.
This activity allowed the organizers to evaluate how much the children learned about solidarity and the importance of putting this value into practice in their daily lives.
The result was a truly memorable experience for the kids, who had the opportunity to laugh and share stories as they tried out different roles as cameramen, reporters and directors. In addition to being an exciting and enriching activity, the mock newscast offered a chance for the children to learn the true meaning of solidarity by working together.
April
Within the framework of our new alliance with the Colombian Triathlon Federation, whose objective is to help improve the wellbeing and education of Colombia’s children through the practice of sports, the Colombian Triathlon Cup was held in San Andres Island during the past 26 through 28 of April. More than 600 athletes from Colombia, Ecuador, Panamá and Venezuela competed in Olympic swimming over a distance of 1.5 Km of open sea, 40 Km of cycling and 10 km of running to finally finish the beautiful route designed around the Island.
June
The “Supérate” Program was conceived within the government proposal of the former presidential candidate Juan Manuel Santos. Aiming at inclusion, sports and academic competences, and complementary school days, this initiative seeks to create opportunities for children between 7 and 17 to practice sports; by fomenting through physical and recreational activities, and a proper use of free time, the improvement in educational quality and permanence as well as the development of citizen competences within the boys and girls in Colombia.
How committed are we to this project? The Foundation plays a very active role in this program and we hope for its evolution and permanence for many years to come; this kind of project shows the results of our work and motivates us to keep on going. For more information about “Supérate”, go to the link below.
About our last Project Report
During the month of April we started the implementation of the methodology “Sport for Peace and Education”, a wonderfully creative method in which rules of sports and conduct converge harmoniously. The method consists on a series of pre-established agreements in which the final score of the game is determined by the fulfillment of the technical rules of each sport and those of conduct, agreed upon previously by the children involved. The coach serves a supervising and moderating roll, but those who determine faults and scores are the children
playing.
Teams are gender-mixed and score points are smiles! What better way to inculcate and promote in our children values such as tolerance, respect and equality?
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
