High Cloud Foundation in Colombia, South America
December 4, 2007
By Adriana and Matt Anderson
Founder@highcloud.org
High Cloud Foundation led a humanitarian effort to Colombia, South America during the Thanksgiving holiday. This mission was led by Adriana and Matt Anderson who are both students at ICAR. We had the priceless opportunity to provide supplies, financial support and most importantly, hope to children and persons displaced by violence and poverty. Our journey began months ago with numerous fundraising events where our members collected material donations and monetary contributions for the children and displaced persons currently supported by High Cloud. We packaged all of the donated material and carried it down with us to Bogotá, Colombia on the 18th of November. It was great to see all of the boxes, as well as our luggage, packed full of materials for our kids.
We arrived to Colombia at approximately 11pm and immediately the next day at around 4am in the morning, we drove down into the state of Tolima in Central Colombia. Our final destination was the “El Limonar” school, located 30 minutes away from the main town, near the Magdalena river in a very rural and poor area. When we arrived to the school, classes were in session with only a few kids in the courtyard playing soccer. Once the principal, Ms. Perez, saw the High Cloud Team approaching, she called the students out into the courtyard to greet us. The kids immediately started coming out of the classrooms with their chairs and started organizing themselves around the main platform in the courtyard. There were also a large number of family members and homeless persons who came to the school after word spread that High Cloud was coming to the town.
The High Cloud Team began the day by talking to the kids about converting their sadness into hope and their dreams into reality. We also had the opportunity to talked to the persons who have been displaced by violence about how they could overcome their conflicts, dream big and persevere in order to surpass their current situation. We held several activities with the kids such as a friendly contest on the topic of the Internet as well as numerous dynamic workshops involving games and songs. We also participated in culinary workshops with the community where we learned how to cook the cuisine of the local “Tolimenses”.
After we finished our workshops, we shared a meal with the kids and the community and at that moment the kids surprised us with an amazing performance composed of Folk dances, local Hymns, national poems and even a song sung in English. These performances were an amazing gift to us as it made us feel an immense amount of love and appreciation for the contributions that we collected in the United States. One of the most memorable moments of the visit was when the kids asked the High Cloud Team to sign their notebooks with personalized messages. It really made us feel so welcomed and loved and it showed to us that it doesn’t take much to make a child smile.
One of the main lessons that we learned during this trip is that if we work together to change the destiny of people who live in poverty and misery, we will construct and build a better society for the whole world. We will continue to help cultivate dreams, hopes and successful goals to ensure that the defenseless have a helping hand that will enable them to construct a better tomorrow.
With the holiday season approaching, please remember that the most vulnerable among us need our support – please check our website at www.highcloud.org if you would like to be a part of this noble cause.
