Plan Padrino is a special program of the Council of the President of Colombia that administers several educational projects throughout the country.

In recent years, one of the regions Plan Padrino has focused on is the poor costal city of Buenaventura. This is a region severely affected by the Colombian armed conflict; thus serving as a refuge to many families that have been forcedly displaced from their home-towns. Because many of the displaced children victimized by this conflict have also fallen behind their peers in terms of their education, there is a more impending need for quality schools and programs in the area. 

Plan Padrino, in conjunction with UNICEF, International Organization for Migrations, Sociedad Portuaria, Municipal Secretary of Education, and the Gobernación del Valle, has designed a program to strengthen Buenaventura’s education system. One specific step to this end is the implementation of UNICEF’s educational model “Escuela Amiga de los Niños” in the public school Pablo Emilio Carvajal.  This specific educational approach aims to create a safe and welcoming environment conducive to learning. This project reaches several thousand children from the preschool level through the eleventh grade. The majority of these children were out of school for many reasons. The goal of the project is to strengthen the capacities of the local community and provide them with the necessary tools in the hope that they will be able to further replicate this program in other schools and have an even larger impact on the education of Buenaventura’s children and the community at large.

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