The Community of Saint Paul starts an after school program in Pesebre, a neighborhood in the south of Bogotá

Since last January, members of the CSP have worked in La Resurrección Parish, located in the southern part of Bogotá. The parish territory includes La Resurrección, Granjas de San Pablo and Pesebre neighborhoods: these are humble, working-class areas of the Colombian capital, mostly layer 2 on the socioeconomic classification of the City of Bogota (which lists the neighborhoods of the capital from 1 to 6, with 1 being the areas with least resources and 6 the wealthiest).

These sectors face a remarkable variety of challenges, from the overcrowding of people in homes of poor quality to the difficulties of families in obtaining quality health services; from the few job opportunities for young people to the abandonment of many elderly. However, after listening in various meetings to the population of these neighborhoods, we soon found that one problem concerns them more than any other: the insecurity prevailing in the streets, directly related to the consumption of narcotic substances by many young people, who commit crimes to obtain resources to be able to use drugs. Drug dependence, in turn linked to the lack of opportunities that many young people face, is a real epidemic in these neighborhoods, where everyone recognizes the existence of several "ollas"—literally, “cooking pots”, that is, spots where drugs are sold in the streets of the capital by the nets of trafficking.

Many people have told us about a dramatic new concern: increased drug use among children of progressively younger ages. If a few years ago those who fell into drug dependence were generally kids older than sixteen or seventeen, the need of the drug dealers to expand the sale of their substances has now made it common that children aged nine, ten and eleven may start using them.

While recognizing the magnitude of the problem, and that all our efforts will just be a drop of water in a great ocean, we considered what to do to help, even in a modest way, to curb this trend. We decided to offer tutoring classes in the evenings, on the premises of the parish in the Pesebre neighborhood. We started in late July: fifteen children between 8 and 12 years were enrolled on the first day, and we hope that this service will keep growing. Part of the problem is that many children who go to school in the morning are by themselves when they come home at two or three in the afternoon, since their parents are away at work, many until late into the night. These children then have no one to help them do their homework or to prevent them from leaving and wandering the streets until dusk, which obviously makes it easier for them to end up falling into the networks of consumption. Our proposal is very simple: to provide a space where these children can go after school, and where they will be helped to advance in their studies, with tutoring and room assignments, and thus perhaps prevent drug dependence from taking over their lives. We have just started. We hope that this becomes a long-term project that may bear some fruit!

The children in this program of preschool childcare come from families of scarce means who live in marginal towns and settlements within the parish. The poverty and need in which these families find themselves seems at times to strip away their dignity. To conduct a well-organized, formal graduation was a way to restore a bit this dignity, at times lost due to their adversities. The parents came to the graduation dressed elegantly and participated with pride in the different activities, while the children were showing off proudly all of their advances. We hope that these children grow with confidence and the dignity necessary to be good men and women in our society.