Colombia is a country of South America with 48,2 million inhabitants decorated by beautiful mountains and pretty flowers. The indigenous represent 4,4% of the population, being registered in 2018 a total of 1,9 million of indigenous in the country. Among them the Wiwa that live in Serra Nevada de Santa Marta and, according to the culture ministry of Colombia, has a population of 13.267 people, being 6.872 men and 6.755 women. Most of the Wiwa are children and young people, being 79% under 30 years old and only 2% above 60 years old. For each 100 native women were identified 42 children under five years old*.
The officila language is “Damana”, it is a people that lives in the rural area and lives on agriculture. After a lot of prayers and work, we could take PEPE for the Wiwa children.
Because of the local culture the children up to 7 years are not recognized as important people inside the community, and therefore, they cannot go anywhere. Thus, we could implement PEPE in that community to reach the children that from 4 years old have participated in our program. After convincing the leaders about the great need of helping the children, we continued the work of implementation of the project. For that, we trained the native ones to be the teachers in our program for their own children, thus, respecting the local culture. We could arrange the classroom with donations of tables, chairs, books and other necessary materials to make possible the learning. We Implemented POPE (Deontology Program) as soon as possible when we realized the great need of the children in this area, due to the lack of access to basic hygiene products.
Today we already have an area coordinator that is native of the Wiwa people and has been a great blessing to see the dedication and desire of taking PEPE to other indigenous communities in our country. Pray for the Wiwa children in order for them to learn how to read and write, but to also know the God of love that can change their lives!
Adalci de Avila Angulo
Coordinator of PEPE Colombia
Adaptation of the text: Carmen Lígia
