colegio amor

Colegio Amor is located in the shanty town of Soacha, Southwest of Bogotá, Colombia. The school has been founded and managed by the Fundación Educativa Amor since 1988 and has been a home to around 450 students of 6-18 year old. All of the students in the Colegio are from Soacha, a growing community with a swelling population year on year, and is occupied mainly by refugees, displaced families and migrants who have left the countryside fleeing from the violence of the civil wars and conflicts, seeking new lives near the cities. Soacha itself is physically very unattractive showing all the signs of poverty, over population, pollution, and a lack of community infrastructure.

Colegio Amor’s work is underpinned by the firm belief that the most conducive environment for children’s development is one that provides security, protection, love and respect. If these conditions are successfully met, children are more likely to overcome the traumas and pressures of their lives and develop into healthy human beings with a firm set of internal and external values, and an awareness of their own self-worth, talents and potential, In this way the children would also become the seeds or agents of change and help with the growth of the community.

Colegio Amor, as its name suggests, is a ‘School of Love’. So as well as offering the children an exciting and broad academic curriculum, the school also focuses on meeting children’s fundamental human needs, which includes providing food, clothing, security, protection, love and respect to all its students.

The school looks at youth as an agent of promoting peace and wellbeing in the wider community. Therefore it particularly encourages children and young people to develop skills and awareness that will prevent them from abuses and damages caused by social instability as the result of violent displacement. It also takes an active approach to nurturing children’s creativity, and enabling them to rediscover their own culture (from which they are displaced).

In addition, the school is renowned for its excellent educational programmes which provide opportunity for young people to learn vocational skills as the preparation for a more sustainable life once leaving the school.

Over time, the school has become a focal point of the local community, apart from educating the young person, it also offers various educational and vocational training and services to adults within the community.

Colegio Amor has thus created a culture of love that has resulted in children’s happiness, confidence, feeling of being secure and above all a sense of self as a member of the community. It is hoped that children educated in such an environment are more likely to become caring and responsible human beings because they have been loved and cared for themselves.

The GHFP is amongst a few international organisations that have provided both financial and substantial support to the school. The school also receives grants from Colombian government.