Help transform colombian children & their families

Centro Social Unidad 

It is located in a locality where they live in a situation of poverty, children and adolescents are affected by domestic violence, with models of dysfunctional patterns, reflected in exclusion, lack of academic and work opportunities that influence their quality of life .

One of the objectives of the CSU is to support children and adolescents in their comprehensive training to enhance their capacities for a life with greater opportunities.

In 2021, it supported 305 children and 190 families, it has been a year of challenges and new challenges. Thanks to the solidarity of so many we have been able to carry out the project called “Help transform colombian children & their families”

This year we have seen with great joy the progress in the academic results of the children, the majority passed the year and the dropout rate decreased. Constant support was achieved in the accompaniment of their homework and school reinforcement, it was possible to offer them a snack each time they attended the CSU.

Since June, work began with a group of adolescents on the 6x1 methodology, which consists of 6 steps to reach a goal, approaching the local reality and aims to make them aware of the problems in the neighborhood. Garbage was selected as the biggest social problem in the neighborhood. The different stages were completed, the adolescents have shown great enthusiasm and desire to improve the community environment.

In November, the Christmas Project began, where the creative and artistic dimension of the children is stimulated, who together with their parents made beautiful Christmas lanterns to decorate their houses and the neighborhood during these festivities.

Help us to offer concrete opportunities to these children and teenagers!

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The Centro Social Unidad CSU is in the La Merced neighborhood in the south of Bogotá.

In 1977, a group of young people wanted to respond to Chiara Lubich's call to “Give their lives for their own”, and they encountered a displaced, marginalized, and vulnerable Bogotá community that lived by making bricks on a road (called Chircales). This community, with multiple needs to be solved, for 44 years has received the help of these young people who, with the support of friends and acquaintances, begin to provide medical, dental, literacy and recreational care to children. In 1986 a donation was received from young people from all over the world who live for the universal brotherhood and thus the first Social Center was built.

There are currently 305 children enrolled at CSU.

The CSU accompanies the children in the school reinforcement, support in the elaboration of tasks, participation in the "The art of loving School" and different activities that contribute to the integral formation of the children and their families.

The pandemic has led us to reinvent ourselves to respond to new challenges and continue to accompany children.

It was the occasion that they were to reinforce the training of the instructors (many of them have participated in the social center when they were children) so that they have greater tools in the accompaniment of children, one of the most recent workshops was Teamwork, with a psychologist who offered her services. WhatsApp groups have been organized with parents to support the children in their homework, a blog has been created to share the different CSU activities with the children and their families and keep the family spirit alive. In the CSU school guides are printed so that children can fulfill their tasks, we continue to explore the best way to accompany them in their educational process.

In this month of August, the children of the sector have resumed their presence at school, and we have decided to return to their presence at school with caution, we do it in shifts so that there are not many at the same time. There are more than ten mothers in the community who have been more directly involved to participate in the programming that is done for children, and it is very nice to observe how the climate of fraternity that we try to live within the Social Unit Center transcends its borders... and little by little spaces for more harmonious relationships are being created within and between families. school.

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