Friends of the Belgian-Colombian Children's Work (Fund)

The organisation Œuvre Belgo-Colombienne de l'Enfance (OBELCO) was founded in 1973 by Nadine de Nève de Roden to support Colombian children and young people in distress. Working in close collaboration with local organisations, OBELCO focuses its actions on three projects:

• Becamos: scholarships for girls between 17 and 22 years old to follow a professional education that will help them rise out of poverty. This project is implemented in close collaboration with the Don Bosco schools in the region.
• Umabari: kindergarten for children between 2 and 6 years old in Villaviciencio (Bogotá region). In this region, many families have been displaced by the war. The aim is to help the children but also the mothers, and to work with the parents on the education of their children, in particular on themes such as intra-family violence, sexual violence, etc.
• Tierra Nueva: kindergarten and reception for children between 2 and 15 years old in Titiribí (Medellin region) to protect the little ones, to help the mothers and to offer an activity to the teenagers when they are not at school. These are children from very poor families in a former mining region where the population often has no income and where there is a great problem of drugs and violence