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Five Things I Learned Travelling in Colombia with World Vision Canada #TMMWVC #TravelTuesday
Some stories rattle around in my head longer than others. Some stories touch your heart immediately but they take time to express. I have a few more of those beautiful meaningful experiences from my time travelling in Colombia late last year. I spent close to a week travelling in Colombia with World Vision Canada in September 2014. The experience was life changing and motivating and moving and so very big. I have already told many of the stories of the Colombian children, the workers and the places we visited, but in the last few weeks I have been travelling back to Colombia in my mind. Asomiflor still needs to be…
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These are My Weapons Against Child Poverty #WorldVisionGifts #TMMWVC
There is a saying in martial arts that my kids repeat over and over each time they grade. My husband knows it too. I am paraphrasing a bit but it’s a little like this – I come to you with empty hands. If I should be forced to use them. These are my weapons: my empty hands. It’s the end of 2014 and so everyone is wrapping up their year with little red bows and packaging it away to start fresh on January 1st. There is beauty and peace in that. We are building our resolutions, hopes and plans. We are collectively hopeful on January 1st each year and it…
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Johan’s Story: What Becomes of Sponsored Children in Colombia
Johan Espinosa has been linked to World Vision for most of his life. He was sponsored at the age of five and grew up to be sponsorship coordinator in Bucaramanga, Colombia where I visited recently with World Vision Canada. His journey from sponsored child to inspirational leader building futures for sponsored children in Colombia is nothing short of remarkable. His story is a beautiful illustration of what becomes of sponsored children in Colombia. One of Three Brothers Espinosa was one of three brothers. They lived with both parents and their father worked, but they were still barely getting by. When you are poor, you often live a life…
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The Importance of Uniforms In Sports #TMMWVC #WorldVisionGifts
At first glance this field seems pretty unremarkable. But first glances can be deceiving. This is a field built with love, sweat, volunteer hours and some financial investment from Canadian donations. This is another tangible space made real and safe for children, because of the help of World Vision Canada. This is a field of dreams where we are about to learn the importance of uniforms in sports in Colombia, and the need for children to have a field of their own. We have driven to a field outside Santander De Quilichao near Taminango. This is an area that is extremely vulnerable to drugs. It is the area of Colombia…
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The Strength of Women in Morales Duque, Colombia #TMMWVC #worldvisiongifts
The women of Morales Duque, in the south of Colombia, have gathered us inside a community centre. I am here to listen to their stories, as a representative of World Vision Canada visiting this country of contrasts. They hand us treats, and a traditional Colombian corn drink and a certificate signed by each member, thanking World Vision Canada. I thought I knew what strong resourceful women looked like. I know a lot about strong women in the context of Canada and the United States. I have never had to look far for brilliant female role models. My Mother, my grandmother, my daughters, my friends. I am surrounded, and I was…
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Two Hands are Enough – My Experience Travelling with World Vision Canada
People told me I’d be changed after travelling with World Vision Canada. That’s fair, of course and true and yet also trite. Inadequate. Changed Words sometimes are so thin, evasive and even limiting. Changed doesn’t begin to capture the depth or range of emotions that I felt when walking through Asimiflor, a brand new area development program in Bucaramanga. the saddest place I have ever seen children living. My week in Colombia with World Vision Canada was jam packed with big adventures and interviews and so many stories shared that I will be recounting them for a decade or more. Eye opening? Yes. Exciting? Yes. Exhausting and heartbreaking and…
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How Soccer Balls Make an Impact in Taminango Colombia
I never thought a soccer ball in Taminango Colombia could make me cry. Let me explain… How Does the Gift of Sports Change Lives? This is what the gift of a soccer ball looks like in Colombia. A team in the middle of a dirt field practising every night. Two young men, sponsored as children, now coaches, committed and clear-headed. Mentors in every way. This is the living breathing outcome of presents from a World Vision gift catalogue. A vulnerable space made into a soccer field in a community where drugs, gangs and crime are extremely big threats to a child’s safety. Poverty lives here every day. It can easily…
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Peace Keepers – Youth in Colombia #TMMWVC
I travelled with World Vision Canada as a guest so I could tell these stories. This week I am sharing my posts from my trip with World Vision Canada. These are two youths, Peace Keepers, we met in an area called Taminango, near Santander De Quilichao. They were incredibly inspiring. You can read about them tomorrow. You can read all of my stories if you follow my hashtag #TMMWVC or follow my blog and read about some of the incredible work being done in Colombia. Peace Keepers is a unique program here in Colombia that builds strong youth through activities and supervision. After school these amazing young men…
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Hope Lives In a School Called Policarpa – Defeating Child Poverty Near Santander De Quilichao, Colombia
Hope is the thing you see in the faces of the students here. Inside a small school called Policarpa, in an area of Colombia called Santander De Quilichao, where domestic heroin use rages and gangs and guns are very real threats to children and entire families. But here, inside this school the children celebrate Amor Y Paz Month – Love and Peace Month. What Hope Looks Like Here Words hang in Spanish on the pillars in the school. Loosely translated they read: Tolerance, Love, Punctuality, Respect, Friendship. It is September and I have flown to South America with World Vision Canada to see the work they do, to chronicle the…
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Five Quick Facts About Colombia #Travel
Courtesy of Shutterstock Five Facts about Colombia 1. The official name for this country at the top of South America is the Republic of Colombia. It comes from the last name of the explorer Christopher Columbus, who arrived in 1499. It was originally called New Granada and only took its modern name in 1861. 2. Colombia is the only country in South America which has coastlines on both the Pacific Ocean and the Carribean Sea. It also borders five countries: Panama, Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru. 3. Colombia is known for its emeralds and coffee. 4. The official language is Spanish (although there are also 88 recognized regional languages spoken…
