Educar Viajando

Background of the Project Initially Educar Viajando was a project completed by Lauren Cannell (our founder) and her husband Jose Alejandro Ruiz Forero intended to pilot the art-based workshops designed by the team at Educacion Diversa. We worked with foundations across Colombia to deliver capacity building workshops in the areas of human rights, sexual and reproductive health and eliminating violence with peaceful conflict resolution. Educar Viajando is evolving to a project that provides people from developed countries with an opportunity to travel and empower people in underdeveloped countries. Educar Viajando focuses on taking people to lower socio-economic communities to provide their skills and knowledge to educate and empower the children and adolescents in the areas of human rights, sexual and reproductive health and eliminating violence with peaceful conflict resolution. Educacion Diversa collaborates with organisations on the ground that are working with children and adolescents and gives art based workshops that engage the children in art-based activities in our areas of focus or alternatively, we provide capacity building sessions for the teachers and parents who work with the children in these institutions, so they can facilitate the art activities and educational workshops themselves. Being a volunteer has lots of benefits. It can bring meaning and purpose to your life, while increasing your self-esteem and wellbeing. Volunteering can also relieve stress and alleviate symptoms of depression. As well as having a positive impact on your community, volunteering can improve your relationships. One of the benefits of volunteering is connecting with other compassionate people and you’ll not only be making a positive impact in the community you’re volunteering in, but spending time with the people who matter most in your life. Educar Viajando is planned for 2025 and we’ve chosen Colombia as the first country to take a group of people around. There are many reasons why we have chosen Colombia, but here are a few: 1. The population living below the poverty line is 34 percent. Though the economic growth of Colombia is among one of the world’s emerging economies, more than three out of ten Colombians still live in poor conditions. Colombia is also the world’s seventh most inequitable country. 2. Colombia’s unemployment rate grew to 9.4 percent in 2017, making it the country with the highest unemployment rate in Latin America after Venezuela. According to Colombia’s National Administrative Department of Statistics, another 8.5 percent of the population was underemployed in the last quarter of 2017. 3. Colombia has been experiencing violent internal conflicts for more than 50 years. Since 1985, over 5.9 million Colombians have been displaced. People then migrate to urban areas and create informal settlements on the cities’ borders. 4. There are about 3.8 million households, nearly 30 percent of all families in Colombia, that do not have adequate homes according to Ministry of Housing estimates. About 662,146 families are homeless, which is five percent of the population. We hope through taking people to poorer communities and giving them the opportunity to use their skills and knowledge to empower others, we can create a cycle for the children within these communities to advocate for change and be motivated to continue their education with the aim to break their cycles of poverty.

### Main Goal of the Project The main goal of this project is empowering children in underdeveloped communities by giving them art-based education in the areas of human rights, sexual and reproductive health and eliminating violence.