San Vincente

Background

San Vicente is a rural municipality in Colombia with a population of 18,000. Consistent with the rural areas in the rest of the country, poverty rates are considerably higher than those in the country’s urban areas. In Colombia’s countryside, for instance, one in five children suffers from chronic malnutrition, and 30% of the population remains illiterate.

Project

Developing Minds Foundation supports a literacy program that introduces specialized books and reading programs for over 500 campesino families living in the post-conflict area of the San Vicente. The program was created after basic reading materials, especially certain agricultural and environmental texts, were initially distributed in several rural communities. Based on how pleased and excited this often overlooked segment of society was with such a simple gesture, our operating partner Secretos Para Contar began to develop a full-scale literacy program to include reading skills, which would become a key factor in the self-development of these rural communities.