Dear Friends of the El Rio Foundation,
As traditional in our Spring Newsletter, we are delighted to share our Annual review 2024. An award- winning year, where over 1,000 children accessed Foundation activities, with an average of 600+ weekly participants. And a year where we could see even more clearly the amazing potential of what we are doing for our region as a whole. To see a selection of our best photos from last year, please click HERE. Huge thank you to our sponsors, partners, guests and friends of El Rio Foundation for helping us deliver more fun and impact in our local community than ever before!
And so to 2025..
Dance and El Rio Games:
In Colombia, we are very lucky that not long into the new year, we get to CARNAVAL! And this year we went BIG with the most dancers ever parading through the streets of Santa Marta and performing in front of huge crowds. The connection formed between children from different areas was particularly pleasing, as in a post-conflict zone, a key aim of our projects is to bring different communities together:
‘My experience of Carnaval in Santa Marta was very fun and bought me closer to the Puerto Nuevo community which I love 100%. I loved every moment dancing through the streets. This year I have become more responsible, more respectful and improved my concentration. I am very grateful to the sponsors because we have learned how to concentrate as a group’ – Luz, 14 years old, Los Linderos
‘It was my first time and I felt very safe enjoying knowing Santa Marta a bit more and being in the parade with my friends and showing our talent! My favourite moment is when we started to dance. When we saw the photos, we all looked like professionals! I have improved my co-ordination, concentration and tolerance and I believe in myself more! Thank you very much because dance is a safe place for me with no bad vibes and I can improve myself physically.’ – Daireth, 15 years old, P.Nuevo
We also organised our own parade through the streets of Buritaca, complete with dance performances from our four community clubs. The enjoyment rating of 42 participants across our four dance clubs in the first quarter has been 9.6/10!
As well as the stand-out large community events, we are delighted to have delivered sports and arts activities to an average of 497 children each week. We welcomed a new rugby coach Alejo Sarcos and our new sponsor for the Los Linderos Multi-sports activities is GivetoColombia. Huge Thank you to Ana De Andreis and the GivetoColombia team for providing a year of activities and wellbeing support for 20+ children with no other access to formal sports opportunities.
Academic Tutoring:
At Tutoring, the team have had an excellent start to the year with 85 children regularly attending our bi-weekly sessions across five communities. We have renovated the classroom in Villacuisa through the Minga event, a collaboration with the Art and Environmental education programmes, to promote environmental care in classroom spaces. Other highlights include the Auction to champion Maths skills and the newly introduced reading sessions with more books available than ever before.
Environmental education, Art and Football:
With our ‘Protecting the Heart of the World’ project due to start in May, in partnership with Common Goal and the adidas Foundation, we have been readying the local community by running several pilot events:
The stand out days were the ‘Minga, Villacuisa’ (see above) and the Buritaca Environmental education and football day’. On March 5th, the community of Buritaca came together with the goal of restoring and beautifying the sports fields and strengthening the sense of belonging of children with their local area. The day involved children from the art, dance, football, little kids, and tutoring programmes, along with the valuable support of teachers from across the Foundation. We painted messages and made waste collection tanks and signs out of recycled materials. We cleaned the football field and the surrounding area and organised a small football tournament to celebrate. To see pictures from the activity, please click HERE. Thank you to Common Goal and the adidas foundation for coming to visit us and the FIFA Foundation for supporting Football for the environment in our area.
‘This day left a profound mark on the hearts of the children in Buritaca. They not only learned about the importance of teamwork and caring for the environment, but they also experienced firsthand how their actions can make a real impact on their community. This activity was not just about cleaning a physical space—it was about planting seeds of awareness, identity, and empowerment.’ – Andres Zuniga, Environmental Education lead
As well as combining with the art and environmental education projects, our community football programme in partnership with the FIFA Foundation continues to go from strength to strength with new sessions added in the Indigenous Community of Quebrada del Sol and in Paz del Caribe. This term’s highlight included the visit of former professional footballer Paula Villariga to inspire our participants. You can watch a short video about her visit HERE.
Community English:
The biggest improvement in our activities has come in our community adult English programme, which has been transformed by Lina Morales, who joined us last year to lead our Academic Tutoring and Community English programme. We have had 16 adults from the local community regularly attend our weekly lesson and language exchange. From stand-up comedy to charades, Lina is never short of ideas in how best to engage and inspire local adults working in the tourism sector. Huge thanks to the LATA Foundation for providing English teaching materials for the programme, Benchmark Holdings for supporting our in-school delivery and El Rio Hostel for providing the funding for all adult sessions.
Indigenous Community:
Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to find a funder thus far for our Indigenous Community programme in 2025, and Naomi Taylor after two years of volunteer teaching has headed back to Europe to do a Masters. We would like to say a big thank you to her for her amazing contribution over the last four years of setting up, running and championing our Indigenous Community programme. She will be sorely missed, especially by the 120+ young people she worked with each week.
We have through the El Rio Games programme been able to renew our weekly multi-sports club in Q.de la Linea and add football and dance sessions in Q.del Sol. Our post-Easter fundraising drive is going to focus heavily on finding a sponsor for this community, so if you would like to find out more or know anyone in your network who might be interested in supporting, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Little Kids’ Activities:
After three wonderful years, Paola Bolano has handed over the reins of LKA to focus on her new flourishing business. It is not goodbye, as she is very kindly still supporting us, but we want to say a huge thank you for her fantastic contribution at LKA and across our academic programmes. She was an absolute joy to work with and has set up a programme that will continue to flourish for many years to come.
The highlight of the term for our new lead Jessica Suarez was, ‘One of the most wonderful moments at LKA was when we did an activity where the children faced their fears by jumping off a platform. At first, they didn’t believe they could do it, but with support, trust, and courage, each of them took the leap. Watching them move from fear to joy was a powerful reminder that limits exist only in the mind, and that when children feel supported and safe, they can achieve incredible things.’
We are welcoming a new intake of children in July, so please share the opportunity for all 3-5 year olds in our local area to join us Wednesdays – Fridays, 9am – 12pm.
Child Safeguarding and Wellbeing:
Our other new programme lead in 2025 is our Foundation psychologist Paola Perez who has been extremely pro-active running 56 wellbeing sessions for 500+ children and young people. During the first quarter, she has focused on building trust with beneficiaries and gaining an in-depth understanding of each community’s dynamics and challenges. She has also provided one-on-one counselling sessions for 8 participants with significant daily challenges.
In addition, 28 staff and volunteers were trained in soft skills such as conflict resolution, emotional recognition and psychological first aid, equipping them to incorporate these practices into their activities. This consolidated the psychosocial component as an active, cross-cutting element in the beneficiaries’ everyday experience. In parallel, psychotherapy sessions were provided to five members of the Foundation’s staff, reinforcing organisational wellbeing as an essential part of our wellbeing strategy.
We always strive to invite external experts to support the programme and this quarter, we were lucky to welcome Carolina Lopez for ‘Taller Anfibia’. In atmospheric rain she performed a one-woman show and followed up with two workshops on woman’s empowerment.
Thank you to Camilo Olivella – Football programme lead
We also wanted to take this opportunity to say to thank you to Camilo Olivella for helping grow our Foundation from the ground up. He was the key figure in running our first football club for 30 children, 6 years ago, and setting up our community football programme which he has led ever since. Under his tenure, the programme as grown to now 250+ children accessing football and wellbeing support every week! From no football opportunities for girls to 100+ playing each week, he has also been the driving force behind setting up the first ever junior girls football league on the Troncal del Caribe and training and growing our football team to six local coaches.
After a short and very well deserved break, he is weighing up sports/football-for-good opportunities both in Colombia and further afield so if you know of any projects in need of huge amounts of positivity and endless enthusiasm, we would be delighted to put you in touch.
Volunteer team:
We also wanted to highlight in this newsletter, the amazing impact of our volunteer team. We have had exceptional volunteers in the first quarter and wanted to particularly thank our volunteer social media team Catalina Hernandez Torres and Karina Wesolowksi, supported by our pro-bono branding consultants Patricia Puchi and Nico Useche from Plan Manada. The quality of the content on our Instagram page is outstanding and acts as the perfect introduction to our Foundation as we approach our big fundraising drive in quarter two. Please check out their fantastic work HERE.
Thank you to everyone involved for a brilliant Carnaval themed start to the year!
Kind regards,
Felix and the El Rio Foundation team
