Education – key to country without violence

As many of you know in Latin America there are a lot of violence, because of drug trade, political situation, guerillas and many more things. The perfect example of all those stuff is Colombia, which is now on the way to end more than 50 years civil war. But one of the most important factors of the situation of Colombia is a lack of education. Many of members of guerillas don’t have any kind of education. To avoid a possibility of children entering in guerillas, and give them chance to get out of poverty and escape from violence, Colombian singer Shakira in 1997 in the beginning of her musical career created a foundation called  Fundación Pies Dezcalzos (Barefoot Foundation).  The foundation’s main focus is building schools, nowadays there are 5 schools across Colombia, and they will build more. The organization provides education and meals for more than 4000 children. Pies Dezcalzos schools are not only schools, they are like a center for meeting and community development around education, coexistence and respect. I believe that education is a key to country without violence, if more children attend to school there are less possibility they will be on “the bad way” in the future. I hope Colombia, and the others Latin American countries will be considered as safe places without violence. J

Barefoot Foundation website: http://www.fundacionpiesdescalzos.com/en/ 

Pies Descalzos school in Cartagena, Colombia