El Rio Foundation – Colombia

Location – Buritaca, Colombia

The ProjectThe LATA Foundation were delighted to be working with a new project in Colombia in 2021, El Rio Foundation, which works in a jungle area of Buritaca near to Santa Marta and the Tayrona National Park. It was born from a desire of the El Rio hostel to give back to the local community by offering educational support and community sport opportunities, as well as reforestation and waste management projects. LATA Foundation funds concentrated on providing an English language programme across various sections of society in the area.

Our SupportFrom February 2021, the LATA Foundation helped to support the 30 hour a week English language classes, covering a programme of teaching and materials to help 12 children and 10 adults. Hostel staff could also benefit from the volunteer community English teacher, as the hostel matched our funds to allow staff education in a parallel initiative.

In 2022, we supported more educational facilities and the indigenous community were included too, by sending our teacher once a week to reach 300 children in the remoter area, who have no access to an English teacher. For 2023, the LATA Foundation will be funding academic tutoring for 15+ children in Buritaca with 6 hours a week of coaching in English, Spanish and Maths. We are delighted that a volunteer from our Projects team in the UK has been able to visit the project during March, to see El Rio’s wonderful work in action.

www.elriohostel.com/foundation