Laura Monroy & Juana Neyra (8th semester FIGRI students, The World in English elective)
“Para todos”, is a civil movement in which you can get involved to help people in need by delivering them some food. It's kind of like working as a delivery guy but with social work, which makes it so much better because you do it to help others! La Movida is a civil movement that started in the middle of the pandemic crisis. The owner of the movement, Cecilia, is aware of the amount of wasted food by restaurants, for this reason, she asks the restaurants if they can pack the rest of the food left and give it to us, so we can deliver it to people in street condition. The thing is, we don't have too many restaurants that help us in that social work, that's why she asks for chefs or people who know how to cook to volunteer in this beautiful work.
We want to share our experience in volunteering in "La Movida: Para todos" because we consider that showing this is important. We want to encourage you and to invite you to do some social work, in which you will face the needs and the real situation of the communities. We want to show you a sneak peek of our journey in this volunteering, how we felt, and our reflections about this beautiful job. As a result, this blog will be divided into 5 parts. We will begin with the first outing of our volunteering in La Candelaria, second, we will describe the second outing in La Movida that was in the National Park in Bogotá, the third will be one of the most exciting that was the Big Movement called #UniversalPlate, the fourth is a short explanation of the Big Movement, and last but not least our conclusion about our experience in this volunteering. Let's begin!
The main point of La Movida is to give nutritious lunches
First outing in La Movida: La Candelaria
Through these weeks of volunteer work providing food to those most in need, we have reflected on many things. During the first outing, we learned roughly how all of La Movida works. We went to a restaurant called "Quinoa & Amaranto" in La Candelaria, near Externado University. The main point of this volunteering is not only to deliver food to those in need but to know their stories, talk to them and have a big picture of the situation of people that lives in the streets.
La Movida Team!
Quinoa & Amaranto packing the lunches!
We took our bicycles and started to deliver the lunches around La Candelaria, which, is one of the places with more people in the street condition in the city of Bogota. We were able to see how many of the people, street dwellers, felt very grateful for the help provided, which shows how beautiful this work is. Thus, we could see that this was a fairly important situation because it shows the current situation in our country, and above all, of this community. Likewise, we felt helpless not to have enough lunches for everyone, we only had 20 lunches for a big community. Nevertheless, we were so satisfied with the volunteering work that we kept doing it the next weekends.
Here are some pictures of our first journey!
Showing me his artwork!
Second Outing in La Movida: National Park
During the second outing in La Movida, we went to the National Park, in which we have been told that there was an indigenous community out in the open, and they need food and clothes. Again, we went to Quinoa & Amaranto to pick up the food. We ride from La Candelaria to the National Park.
Personally, I thought that we were going to help some indigenous community that was demonstrating against the national government. Nevertheless, we found a bigger issue, there was a big number of indigenous communities who are displaced by the armed conflict in Colombia from different departments like Cauca, Chocó, Arauca, etc. We had the opportunity to interview some of the leaders of the indigenous communities to have a big perspective of what is going on. His name is Alirio Velasquez, he came from Chocó to Bogotá in February of 2021, escaping the armed conflict. He told us that in Chocó the Paramilitary groups and the dissidents from the FARC guerrilla were fighting for the territory. As a result, he and his family had to run away and leave their crops, house, and life to escape violence. They arrive at Bogotá and the Mayor's office gave them every month a subsidy to pay the rent and to buy food. Nevertheless, in September the Mayor's Office stop giving them the subsidy. Thereby, they end up sleeping in the streets. We were shocked, because as a group, never thought that we would be facing some of the important internal issues of Colombia.
Third Outing in La Movida: #UniversalPlate
During the third and last outing, was the Universal Plate. It was something very special and fun. Our group met in the Plaza de Bolivar for a massive day, where we delivered up to more than 8000 lunches for all those street dwellers.
#UniversalPlateTeam
It was a very beautiful job; we had the assistance of many people willing to help. We were at the Bolivar Plaza. This place was chosen because in this area there is a lot of homeless and street workers who might like to have a free lunch for the day. We were so happy, to make them happy! but I'm not going to lie, it was hard work, really hard work. Every tent had a chef, that was the leader, and four assistants or helpers, we were helpers. We had to serve the soup, arrange the cutlery, and deliver the soups. It was an exciting experience, but very exhausting. In the middle of the day, we realize that the street workers couldn't move because they can't leave their business. As a result, we took a plastic box to put the soaps and started to give them to them.
#UniversalPlate What is that and why is so important?
International Universal Plate is recognized for imposing the challenge for zero hunger in Colombia. On Saturday, October 16, during World Food Day, this gastronomic solidarity day was held where more than 8 thousand dishes of food were served to those most in need. This is a global campaign of Social Gastronomy, which integrates communities around the world through rich and nutritious dishes for free. The goal this year was to deliver 1 million dishes to the world.
Other similar projects internationally: Acción Contra el Hambre:
Action Against Hunger is an NGO that supports local populations and refugees in their most basic needs and the most dangerous regions of the planet, providing nutrition, health care, hygiene, and food safety, teaching populations to be self-sufficient. Thus, food security projects address production, access, and income problems, help prevent and anticipate future outbreaks of malnutrition. For this reason, this NGO is in charge of developing projects designed to boost agricultural production and the activity of local markets, supporting micro-business initiatives to improve a vulnerable community's access to sustainable sources of food and income.
By telling you about other projects at an international level, we want to show you how this type of project can change a person's life. It is thus a universal project whose purpose is to be able to eradicate the ha, famine in certain areas of the planet. This type of project has advanced and prosperous, they allow to show the good results of this type of dynamics and thus, to be able to create new ones in other departments of the country and also encourage people to participate more in this type of events.
In addition, there are many more projects of this type around the world. Not only by non-profit organizations but also by the States themselves, which decide to include this problem of hunger within their government programs due to its importance when it comes to guaranteeing fundamental rights. Likewise, these projects are located more in continents such as Africa and Asia, where poverty and social inequity prevail. The most affected are children, many times they do not reach their pre-adolescence and die of malnutrition.
Spanish and American chef José Ramón Andrés Puerta temporarily converted his restaurants into community kitchens to provide lunches to support low-income families, the homeless, and the elderly. He created a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing meals in disaster areas and has also asked the government to do more to help the most vulnerable.
Conclusion:
As you might notice, our experience was incredible! I'm very happy with all the work we have done and the love that we have spread. If you are those people that are helpful but don't know how to help or don't know any volunteering near you, I introduce you “La Movida: Para Todos”, a wonderful civil movement in which you can get involved with different communities by helping them to calm hunger among them. Our experience was incredible, we didn't expect to get involved in so many different communities, but also, we didn't expect to be with them and talk to them to find different solutions on how we can intervene to visualize the issue to the rest of the Colombian society, to spread the news to get more helpful people. We think that this movement is fighting an enemy that has been among us since the beginning of humanity, something that nowadays we ignore. We are very grateful for the knowledge that we acquire and the amazing time we spend with the members of La Movida and the people we helped. Our hearts are full of love and empathy towards the communities that we brought food and a little bit of joy.
No comments:
Post a Comment