The Bernard van Leer Foundation in Colombia
The Foundation’s presence in Colombia dates back to the mid-1970s, when the semi-governmental Colombian Family Welfare Institute (Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar, or ICBF) was set up with a 2% payroll tax (now 3%) to support children and families by delivering various forms of public welfare services. All of the foundation’s partners have established relationships with the ICBF, and the foundation’s involvement in Colombia over the years has been widely credited as influential in improving the quality and refining the methodologies of ICBF childcare programmes.
Despite the ICBF’s successes, however, many young children in Colombia remain seriously affected by a cycle of violence, migration and poverty. More than half of Colombia’s children live in poverty, a quarter in extreme poverty. Armed conflict has driven many families from rural areas to urban slums, where they lack adequate housing, jobs, or social services. Gang violence, organised crime, the trade in illegal drugs and commercial sex work are among the daily realities of life for many children.
The government has taken concrete legislative steps to strengthen child protection. But the efficiency and effectiveness of these measures is at times undermined by fragmentation of responsibilities, lack of coordination between institutions, and insufficient resources. With decentralisation increasingly giving municipal and departmental governments a greater role in implementing services to meet the needs of children and families, inconsistent operationalisation of national policies remains a major problem.
The foundation’s programme in Colombia seeks to tackle this by building relationships between these municipal and departmental administrations, local community organisations, training institutions, civil society organisations and service systems such as the ICBF. Our programme focuses on creating safe and caring environments for children aged up to eight, with special focus on the childen under three. Even in the most adverse conditions, if a young child is surrounded by supportive and positive influences, they have a chance to survive and even thrive.
At a large scale, it is government policies and structures that can create safe environments. At a more individual level, we support interventions that help caregivers, through training and workshops, to cope with stress and build their capacity to provide a better environment of care for their young children.
Since 2007, the foundation’s partners have engaged in a collective project named ‘Talento Humano’ that seeks to analyse, systematise and document the various intervention strategies they apply in their individual projects. Generating and publicising knowledge is a major goal of our programme in Colombia, to contribute to the national debate on what are the most effective intervention strategies.
