The various training courses that take place at the “Casa Garavito Community Development Center” in Bogotá, Colombia (sewing workshop, after-school tutoring, English, drawing and guitar classes), completely occupy the available space in this center. For this reason, in August we decided to rent an additional space, located in a building near the original headquarters of Casa Garavito, in order to expand our educational offer.
To begin with, we announced that we would start a manicure course for people interested in learning everything related to nail care, and 54 women signed up. This good response tells us that this is a field that interests many people. The idea, of course, is that once they finish the course, the students can earn some resources by offering nail care at home, or in shops dedicated to this.
The manicure classes in the new space (which we have called “Casa Garavito – Site B”) began the first week of September, with a teacher very dedicated to her work. So far, the students are happy and grateful for everything they are learning. We are convinced that to give training opportunities to people, who later can get a job thanks to this training, continues to be the best way to help the development of these marginal sectors from the South of Bogotá.
The development center of the Community of Saint Paul in El Pesebre neighborhood of Bogotá has started its activities in 2021 despite the limitations imposed by the pandemic
In Colombia, the annual school calendar begins in February and ends at the end of November, and the educational programs that the CSP develops in “Casa Garavito” follow this same calendar. After a 2020 marked by the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, in 2021 the academic year has started with optimism, despite the fact that the situation continues to be delicate.
In this new school year, we asked the teacher of the Sewing courses to work twenty hours a week (eight more than in the past), in order to accommodate the students in smaller groups, in which the social distance can be preserved. She accepted the proposal, and on February 1st she started with eight groups of six students each, for a total of 48 students (and we have a waiting list). Five groups are made up of women who had already started their training in previous years, and there are three new groups, of students who are just beginning their instruction in the use of sewing machines.
In addition, the teacher who offers tutoring classes to primary school boys and girls also started the first week of February with a total of 20 students (the size of the classroom that we use for this program, with the biosecurity measures, makes it impossible to increase this number), divided into four groups, which he attends every afternoon, from Tuesday to Friday.
In 2021 we have also expanded the hours of service of the two therapists who offer psychological support to people in the neighborhood: currently, between the two of them they work 25 hours a week. They are seeing fifty patients.
Likewise, the nurse that the CSP hired in 2020 to make home visits to sick people in the neighborhoods where we work continues to be dedicated to this project, seeing an average of 10 to 15 patients per week.
At the end of February, we also started again the guitar classes for children at Casa Garavito, which were interrupted a year ago due to the pandemic. For obvious reasons, we have not yet been able to restart the training classes for the elderly. To do so we are waiting for the situation to improve, although several elders from the neighborhood have already expressed their wish that we do not delay too long, because they do miss their classes!
Recently, women who learned how to sew with industrial machines at CSP's Casa Garavito Community Development Center in Bogotá have obtained new contract, in this case with a Healthcare Company. Each week they must produce 250 disposable gowns for the staff of this health company, for the agents who conduct Covid tests in the Colombian capital. In the midst of the innumerable difficulties and suffering that the pandemic is causing to so many people, this contract is a relief for the women of our center and for their families, as well as a very concrete way of collaborating in the fight against the coronavirus. We explain it in the following video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsh5hmq-8TA&feature=youtu.be
After the period of vacations (which in Colombia takes place during the months of December and January), at the beginning of February the various programs that take place at Casa Garavito Community Development Center of the Community of Saint Paul in Bogotá began their usual activities.
We are very pleased to note that, this year, enrollment for the various courses and programs offered at our community center has been greater than in previous years. The number of people interested in the women's cutting and sewing workshop, in particular, has increased significantly. If in 2019 we had a total of 50 women in the different courses of this program, in 2020, 85 women are participating in it (divided into four different groups). It is a joy to see the interest that this project has generated within the community.
On the other hand, the rest of the Casa Garavito programs have also started the year on the right foot: 30 children participate in English classes, 30 young people in guitar lessons, 20 grandparents and grandmothers in general education classes for the elderly , and 15 children in school reinforcement classes. The psychologist who offers her services to people who request them visits the Casa every Wednesday for six hours and, on the other hand, this year Casa Garavito hosts a new handicraft course, attended by 12 people, which meets the Saturdays in the morning.
From here we would like to thank the many volunteers and collaborators that make it possible for Casa Garavito to remain a place of encounter, learning and hope in the El Pesebre neighborhood of Bogotá.
With the beginning of the school year, the various educational programs of the Community of Saint Paul in Casa Garavito Community Development Center in Bogotá (Colombia) have begun
In Colombia, the school calendar runs from February to November, so that students' longer vacations, which in other countries are in July and August, take place in December and January. With the start of the academic year in the schools and universities throughout the country, we have also started the various educational programs that operate in the Casa Garavito Community Development Center, which the Community of Saint Paul runs in the El Pesebre neighborhood in Bogota.
This year we have launched two groups of new students for the Sewing classes. Adding the people who have registered to start from scratch to those who will continue their training from last year, there are now 50 people (mostly women, although also some men accompany them) in these courses.
Another program that also started the first Saturday of February was the education for the group of elderly who have been receiving academic formation since 2017. We are very happy to report that this year several new students have joined this group. Today around twenty older adults meet, pen and paper in hand, every Saturday at “Casa Garavito” for their classes.
The guitar lessons for children and young people have started as well. Additionally, we are now enrolling children and teenagers to take Basic English classes, a new initiative which will begin in April. This will undoubtedly be a good complement to the rest of the programs, and many people have already shown interest in it.
From “Casa Garavito” (where other pastoral programs take place, such as a weekly Bible workshop and a youth group) we continue to coordinate our university scholarship program. In 2019 we will be assisting 22 students from the neighborhood so that they may continue their university studies.
Finally, a new initiative of the Community of Saint Paul in Bogota for this 2019 is that we have started a collaboration with a local foundation (“Solidarity, Strength of the Little Ones”) that for some years has served people with mental disabilities. Thanks to the CSP’s involvement, the men and women cared for the foundation have now activities organized for them three days a week (before, they were only gathering once a week).
Students of the sewing course of the Community of Saint Paul in Bogotá organize an exhibition with garments made by them
On August 5, the first exhibition of garments made by the women of the Sewing workshop that the Community of Saint Paul established a year ago in the south of Bogotá (Colombia), took place at La Resurrección parish. The exhibition was a very positive experience, both for the women who are part of the project, who were able to make their work known to others, and for the parish community, who had the opportunity to appreciate the fruits of the workshop. Several people, seeing the good quality of the exposed clothes, ordered women's dresses, blouses and jackets.
This exhibition has been carried out thanks to the perseverance and commitment of the group of women who, after a year of training, now arrive at the end of the first stage of the process. And they are already very excited about the next stage: establishing a productive cooperative through which the learning they have received can result in direct benefits for the families of these women. To all the participants in our sewing center, we want to say: congratulations, and let’s keep going!
Thirty children and teenagers sign up for the music classes that the CSP has started in the Pesebre neighborhood of Bogotá
The Community Development Center "Casa Garavito", which we inaugurated last April in El Pesebre neighborhood of Bogotá, is already working at a good pace. The last initiative that we started in the center's facilities (besides the sewing courses for women, training classes for the elderly, library, meetings of a youth group and a weekly Bible workshop) has been a guitar course for children and young people from the area.
We announced this new activity in the neighborhood and in a few days thirty children and teenagers were enrolled. We divided them into two groups, and the classes have been going very smoothly every Saturday since mid-June. For now, the future guitarists are enthusiastic about what they are learning, and Manuel, the instructor, assures us that the students are joyful and talented.
There is no doubt that music is very attractive to many people, perhaps especially among to the youth. In that sense, we are very happy to offer a service like this in a neighborhood where the opportunities to learn how to play an instrument are very scarce.
On April 15 took place the inauguration and blessing of the new Community Development Center that the Community of Saint Paul has established in the El Pesebre neighborhood of Bogotá (Colombia).
This Community Development Center has been baptized as “Casa Garavito”, in memory of Fr. Alfonso Garavito Rodríguez, a priest from Bogotá who from the mid-60s to his death in 2006 exercised his ministry, with exemplary dedication, in the southern side of the Colombian capital. For a time, he even resided in the house that, now, the CSP has rented and arranged to be used for pastoral purposes.
In the premises of the Center, the Sewing Workshop established by the CSP has already been in operation for several weeks. Thirty women are currently being trained there. Soon, we will also transfer there the classes we offer to a group of older adults in the neighborhood, as well as a small library, school reinforcement classes and catechesis for children and young people.
For the blessing of the Center we had the presence of Msgr. Alberto Forero Castro, Vicar of the Pastoral Region of Bogotá in whose territory is located the Pesebre neighborhood. A good number of neighbors and members of the local community also participated in the celebration.
It is our wish that the new Community Development Center “Casa Garavito” may contribute to the wellbeing of the section of Bogotá where it is located, becoming a place where many people may be trained to face, with the right tools, the many challenges that life poses to them.
