Hi, we work in Colombia, and in we just started after the pandemic with ABCD as a methodology in our comminity. I wan to say that it was the perfect moment because we were all here at home. Also, we had the people to help us with the surveys so we could do the job very fast.
Hello everyone, my name is Santi, I write to you from Medellin, Colombia. At this moment, with my team, we are carrying out the pilot of the ABCD methodology specifically in a neighborhood called Independencias, a sector that is very vulnerable to poverty and violence. Since four months ago we changed all our work focused on social innovation, and within the bobliography that we read we found this methodology. We conducted a survey of 380 people, taking into account that in our community live approximately 4500 people. We asked about the assets, also following the tools that are available on the official website of DePaul University.
The objective of our work is to collect information for educational programs within five classrooms that we have available within the neighborhood. Two weeks ago, we began to gather the community for what they told us they wanted to learn, specifically those who expressed that they wanted to learn English which was 20% of the respondents. Here we wanted to evaluate one of the dilemmas we have, and that is, the issue of motivation, since we have shown that there is a large dropout rate within traditional education (most of them leave school when they turn eleven or twelve). In the first meeting we asked them which class has motivated them the most in their lives, and what made it special. On that basis, we have already held four classes, where play, dance and singing have been a central part of the methodology, since that was what stood out from the first activity. The motivation so far is very high, each class gets more and more people, so we opened three different rooms, each with twelve students.
There are still many things to do, we know, and much to learn from all of you, but the first thing was to tell you about this project, and that here in Medellin we are also following this very interesting path.
A hug to all of you. Your comments in this community have been of great help in our process.
Santi
