The new child development center (CDI for its Spanish name) will host more than 80 boys and girls from the city center.
Las Golondrinas Foundation does not cease in its projects for the benefit of early childhood. Among all of them, one of the most recognizable are the child development centers (CDIs), protective spaces in which children in their first stage of growth are welcomed under the care of the Foundation's educational agents, who also promote in infants, social interaction and exploration of their environment through play and the arts, two of the fundamental components of the Golondrinas experience.
In September, the Foundation opens the doors of the new CDI Casa de Luz, the most recent of the 70 centers it has in the 25 municipalities of Antioquia and Córdoba in which it operates. In this new center, Las Golondrinas will guarantee the rights of more than 80 vulnerable children from La Candelaria, El Centro de MedellÃn.
"Casa de Luz was born thanks to the identification of a real need in street vendors, indigenous migrants and Venezuelans migrants who live in El Centro," says Gabriela Santos, executive director of the Foundation. "The pandemic forced many women heads of households to work informally and, having no other alternative, to take their babies with them, exposing them to the dangers of the street and denying them the opportunity to receive an early education; for that reason , we have decided to open this new child development center with the support of our allies and the Buen Comienzo program", she concludes.
Casa de Luz will operate in one of the two houses that, previously, made up the administrative headquarters of Las Golondrinas, a place that has been adapted to support the development and early education of infants and that adds to the return to presence in the majority of the various points of care for early childhood that the Foundation has.
A posthumous tribute
Casa de Luz receives its name in homage to Luz Paulina Vieira of Arcila, one of the five founders of Las Golondrinas, who passed away on February 15, 2021(r. i. p.). "Luz was one of the fundamental pillars in the birth and development of Las Golondrinas Foundation, her soul has left its mark on our work and, through Casa de Luz, she will always remain at the service of the most vulnerable children, "says the director.
Luz Paulina Vieira of Arcila (1934 - 2021) r. i. p.