Initiatives
Medellin Children's Foundation partners with and empowers community run projects throughout Colombia. These projects help combat malnutrition, promote education, offer health care and provide safe spaces for the children living in the poorest parts of the country. Below you will find the projects that we support.
Fundacion Acarpin
Location: Copacabana, Antioquia
Partnership with Help Colombia
Founded in 1935 by Father Bernardo Montoya, Acarpin is an orphanage that is home to 61 children. Located in Copacabana, a town just north of Medellin, children typically enter the orphanage because of difficult situations at home, with the most common drivers being sexual abuse, physical violence and abandonment. Acarpin becomes the children's new home, where they receive world-class care and plenty of affection from a nurturing staff of counselors, teachers, cooks and volunteers. Acarpin provides everything for their children: a school for them to learn at, friends for them to play with, healthy meals for them to grow up on and a safe place for them to rest their heads at night.
Educambio
Location: Cali, Valle del Cauca
Founded in 2016 by Cali native, Lucas Bravo Reyes, Educambio is a social enterprise that provides education opportunities to children from Colombia’s most vulnerable communities. Educambio does it all; they build libraries, administer after school programs, provide notebooks and help kids get into elementary and high school. They started in Cali but now they span all of Colombia. We’ve been looking for an experienced partner that’s focused on education and from the moment we met Lucas and his team, we knew we’d found it. We work with Educambio on scholarships, libraries and after school projects for children across Colombia.
La Cocina de Kima
Location: Medellín, Antioquia
Having seen her three children suffer from hunger, Medellin local, Kima Largacha, took matters into her own hands and started La Cocina de Kima, a soup kitchen in Villa Hermosa barrio of Medellin that feeds those in need in the local community. People of all ages, from children to the elderly, frequent La Cocina every day for their daily bread. What started off as a mother taking care of her children has turned into an extraordinary example of female leadership and altruism in Medellin.
Help Colombia
Location: Medellín, Antioquia
Founded in June 2020 by a group of siblings and friends who grew up in Medellin, Help Colombia is a Colombian non-profit organization that helps orphans find homes, teach children English, run local toy drives and so much more. Trying to put a box around Help Colombia is impossible because they do it all! The only thing that matters to them is helping children. They originally connected us to Fundacion Acarpin and now we are funding the weekly English classes that they run for 45 children in Moravia, Medellin.
Past Initiatives
Comedor Comunitario Infantil Emmanuel
Location: Medellín, Antioquia
Santo Domingo native Sneider Zapata started Comedor Comunitario Infantil Emmanuel, a children's soup kitchen, in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the poorest neighborhoods in Medellin, Santo Domingo was hit particularly hard by the pandemic as working class jobs were lost and overcrowded schools were shuttered during the lockdowns . Comedor Comunitario Infantil Emmanuel started off feeding a handful of children a couple times a week. Today, it provides one nutritious meal to over 100 children every day. The soup kitchen also serves as a classroom, where foreign and local volunteers teach English, and a safe space where the children from the community can gather and play.