Editorial

Although statistics are cold and they do not reflect the dynamic of this society which is built from the daily life, they are important to find out how big the human tragedy is here in Colombia. It is estimated that in Colombia, over 17 millions people (from its 44 millions of habitants) are younger than 18 years old and among them, over seven millions children are submerged in poor and misery conditions, over two millions children have no access to educational institutions, almost three millions children are identified as “working children”, and over 10 thousand children are related to an armed group. This tragic situation has become explicit because of the following issues, sometimes shown by the communication means: abuses, violations, etc, helping us in this way to visualize those situations, situations that, for most of the children, are part of their daily life.

We have to be worried about the situation in which children who participate actively in the armed conflict are immersed in. Young people’s recruitment is punished by national and international laws, but the real thing here is that the number of boys and girls who are participating in the armed conflict is getting bigger with the time. They are obliged to be part of the tragedy of war because of the conditions of permanent vulnerability of their rights.

The new “Ley de Infancia”, which is almost approved by the Congress, in theory pretends to guarantee the fundamental rights of those children. But it really aims at defining the young legal punishment and it is going to be applied to children who are from 14 to 18 years old. We are asking for the reason why the promoters and the Congress are motivated to move on in approving this kind of laws. Are they really looking for the legal guarantees to protect those children? Or do they just want to take their freedom away when they pass through an illegal situation? In the daily life some young people are found guilty for having committed a crime…but are they really responsible?

Benposta and some other people and NGOs are the kind of organizations that ask this sort of questions frequently. Benposta also pretends to be a back up in the children’s process and in its daily practice it aims at building a human development process, giving them (children) the possibility to identify and to build their own life project. Benposta was born in Orense-Spain in 1957. The clerk Jesus Cesar Silva Mendez begins and keep this experience alive based on children who are victims of abuses and social exclusion in the world. Benposta has as an objective in our modern society to promote children’s rights appreciation.

In 1974, Benposta appears in Colombia through the “Circo de los Muchachos” show. It is through this magic and fantastic show, composed by 130 children, that benposta shares its message: to find a hope light in this cruel reality for lots of children that find in our proposal a space for making their dreams come true. In this way Benposta is founded here in Colombia on April the 17th of 1974. Nowadays Benposta has three different zones: in Bogotá, Meta and Cordoba and in each one of them Benposta is making different projects to help children to have a good life through the respect of their dignity.

In this 30 years learning process we have established some principles as a guide for our pedagogic practical job: all children must be understood as social subjects; children are not delinquents, they are victims of a system of social exclusion that makes impossible the development of their personality; It is not possible to establish a education based on the stigmatic definitions like “poor, rich, abandoned or displaced”

The term Educative Community is the one that best defines the institutional action of Benposta. The direct and active participation of children in the design of each one of the activities of Benposta is one of the fundamental principles of the pedagogical praxis. We believe that you can bring somebody up in a safety environment just given by a educative community. Children must build their own lives based on their potentialities and not on their deficiency.

When you reread the social juncture based on the history of the children that face the difficulties to live in a society like this one, you find out that if you give the opportunity to those children they have lots of things to contribute. That is why it is fundamental to change people’s minds and to change the educative systems that prohibit to build a great future instead of let them dream with a fair and tolerant society. That is the reason of why lots of people like us, who are close to the children’s reality, are opposed to accept this kind of education and we believe in other ways to understand them (the children).

José Luis Campo
Benposta - Colombia.