Dear Friends of El Rio Foundation,
As we embark on our new 2025/26 fundraising drive, we wanted to start this newsletter by celebrating our first ever external funding partner La Vida. In fact, they were helping us with letters of support before we even existed; so they have really been there every step of the way, as we have grown from one club for 30 children, to now ten community programmes for 600+. They helped co-create our Academic Tutoring programme pilot in October 2021 where we aimed to provide educational support to 12+ children. Within 18 months that number had grown to 80 and La Vida have sponsored a large part of the programme ever since.
La Vida supports grassroots organisations across Latin America and I was lucky enough to visit two of their other projects: Poder Joven in Medellin and Villa Maria primary school in Lima. Both had extremely committed and pro-active staff bringing huge amounts of positive energy to their roles. They were both inspiring examples for us, as we built our community programmes, and we are now very proud to be part of and connect with the La Vida network. We would therefore like to say a huge thank you to Katy, Zary and the whole La Vida team for six years of amazing year-in, year-out support.
The most pleasing feedback from this term’s Academic Tutoring programme came at our best attended parents’ evenings ever: ‘We want the best for our children and the Tutoring program is giving our children the best skills to learn and live a better life,’ – Estrella, Buritaca parent.
The children themselves are making continued strong progress across the board. And in the most recent regional chess championships, our participants, came first, second and fourth. You can watch a short video introduction to our Foundation Chess finals HERE.
El Rio Games and Dance programmes:
It’s been an action-packed quarter with exceptional delivery across all sports. We had 4,204 attendances across our 25 sports activities.
Our big stand-out events of the term included the:
- Families Easter Egg hunt
- Los Linderos GivetoColombia Multi-sports festival day
- Buritaca primary school super sports club.
- Buritaca secondary school super sports club
- Dance Closure of the term celebrating Earth Month.
In total, we had 500 participants take part in our big festival days and a 150+ strong crowd for the closing event, where the dance team, led by Laura and Lily, put together outstanding performances from four communities.
‘One of the big successes of the end of term dance event was creating a bond between children from two geographically close communities who didn’t really know each other, through dance and fun’ – Lily, El Rio Foundation Dance teacher.
We were also delighted to support the La Playita skate park opening, which has 50+ children skating every afternoon for 4+ hours. We also wanted to say a big thank you to Matt Hakes for sponsoring our new Rugby programme. We now have weekly sessions in Puerto Nuevo and Las Cabanas, the highlight of the term being 9 Irish and 3 Kiwi volunteer guests coming to join the fun!
Art and Environmental programme:
Just Amazing! Our ‘Protecting the Heart of the World’ Common Goal and adidas infrastructure project, aimed at inspiring pro-active climate action from 600 participants and their families, has been completely embraced by the community. This term’s highlights include:
- The Eco-week mural celebration in Guandolo – May – monthly theme: Air
- Earth month End of term dance performances – June – monthly theme: Earth
- Cabanas permaculture playground launch – July – monthly theme: Climate Change.
And who better to summarise the impact of the project so far than our Environmental lead Andres Zuniga:
‘Over the first three months we have already recorded 518 active participants (children, mothers, fathers, and community leaders) across five rural communities in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The activities carried out have strengthened environmental knowledge, spiritual connection to the land, and collective climate action through cultural, creative, and community-based approaches.
Through artistic hikes, environmental film screenings, composting workshops, community murals, eco-themed sports activities, seedling planting, and intercultural education with the Kogui people, children have been able to express themselves, reflect, create and lead small-scale changes within their communities.
The integration of a “Kogui Mamo” (spiritual leader) has added a deeply spiritual dimension to the environmental education, fostering respect for ancestral knowledge.
This project does not only educate — it transforms. The Sierra Nevada is a vital ecosystem for Colombia and the planet. The children learning to protect it today are the living seeds of the future.’
Football:
‘The Joy of Football will change the world’ is the new slogan of our partners Common Goal and we couldn’t agree more. We now have 141 boys and 117 girls playing every single week thanks to the support of the FIFA Foundation. Behaviour at football has never been better as children from five communities train for the upcoming league season!
We were also very lucky to welcome Karen Duenas, Maria-Paula Rodriguez and Paula Villariga from Fundación Pech who provided a week of training and support to our football and El Rio Games coaches. The week of workshops built towards the Guandolo multi-sports Games where our staff put their learning into practice. It actually got rained off on the Friday, so twelve of our staff volunteered to spend the first Monday of the holidays delivering the re-arranged event. Working with the Guandolo community is such a joy that there is nothing we would rather be doing!
You can read the Impact report from the Fundación Pech visit HERE.
Community English:
Although the children are making strong progress (and having full blown conversations with guests at sports clubs), we have to once again feature the Community English Language exchange, supported by the LATA Foundation, as the highlight of the term because the participants simply love meeting people from all over the world. Education and fun all wrapped into one. The engagement at the Hostel staff English lessons is also at an all-time high with 50+ students taking part in 25+ hours each week (sponsored by the Hostel).
Indigenous Community:
We are still looking for a funding partner for this programme, which you can read about HERE. We have however been running weekly football sessions sponsored by the FIFA Foundation and bi-weekly dance classes supported by Hostel guest donations. Both have been thoroughly well attended.
The environmental education programme is also partnering with Indigenous environmental teachers, so the Autumn newsletter will include exciting details of this new collaboration.
Little Kids’ Activities:
The highlights for our youngest participants have been pizza-making on Chef’s Day and the El Rio Games end of term celebration complete with Magic show and inflatable pool activity! As Jessica, our project lead, summarised: ‘They were really, really happy!’
Child Safeguarding and Wellbeing:
Our Wellbeing programme keeps going from strength to strength with our project lead Paola excelling in her new role. As she describes ‘110+ children and adolescents have actively taken part in our new wellbeing clubs: dedicated spaces designed to play, reflect and connect, while developing key skills such as empathy, assertive communication, and teamwork. Through board games, experiential activities and collaborative challenges, wellbeing has been experienced with joy, confidence and purpose.’
The consistent participation and excellent feedback from the participants is also an indication of the fantastic impact of Paola’s work: ‘I like the Wellbeing club because going makes me happy, because every day is better for me, and every time I learn new things. Also, because we play a lot.’ – Briana, aged 11.
Paola has also delivered group wellbeing training sessions in partnership with many of our other programmes to 500+ young people. Ten young people are currently receiving tailored individual support. She has also run monthly training sessions for 28 Foundation staff and volunteers, focusing on our monthly Foundation wellbeing themes, and provided one-on-one support for six staff members.
‘Many thanks to El Rio Foundation and Paola for these spaces, where we can achieve better mental and emotional well-being, which leads us to be more efficient in our jobs every day, and to provide a higher-quality, focused education. Thank you so much.’ – Álvaro Hernández.
Foundation Cricketers star on world stage:
To finish, I’m delighted to share that our Foundation cricket coach Oscar Snow and I accidentally set a new T-20 International record for the highest partnership for a last wicket pair in a successful chase, making 56 runs together against Mexico, on Sunday May 11th. I can assure you no one was more surprised than us! As almost all of our training sessions are with our junior cricketers, we would like to say a big thank you to the children of Las Cabañas and Puerto Nuevo for supporting our international exploits.
Conclusion:
And breathe… Our new partnership with adidas and Common Goal has built new infrastructure and an environmental hub in Las Cabanas. We have also run the highest volume of El Rio Games, Art, Dance and Football activities ever, with our academic and wellbeing programmes also continuing to grow. I would like to say a huge thank you to our Director of Operations Ximena and administration support Danelis for the sheer amount of organisation involved in another three months of consistent fun, inclusivity, reliability and impactful delivery across all communities and programmes.
Successful delivery is the key to finding new funding partners and investment in our community programmes, so we are the best placed we have ever been to connect with new opportunities in the second half of the year. To read our presentation for new partners, please click HERE.
Thank you again to everyone that has been and is supporting us. As always, all ideas, feedback and introductions are very welcome.
Hope you have a brilliant end to the summer!
Kind regards and best wishes,
Felix and the El Rio Foundation team
