The Scoop

        There are situations in life that the human being doesn’t know about and only until the moment in which it approaches, he or she knows the magnitude of our love towards life. We live in blessed and favored conditions, with family, friends, people that love us. We are full of energy, welfare, and health. With all this, one doesn’t size the huge privileges that life contains, or that one has had during life, and most of the time because of this, one locks itself in and decides to live in a bubble of greed, selfishness, individualism, and materialism. All these changes when life gives you the chance to meet people who lack all this, people who love and cling to life even though they have not had the physical or mental conditions to do so.  

 

        On Saturday, February 2nd, the eighth graders and their families had the opportunity to share and spend time with the kids from “Luz y Vida” foundation. Every year, the “Asosiación de Padres de Familia” from our school promotes this activity where the kids come to school and they spend a pleasant time, where the whole Pacha family turns to serve them, demonstrating a lot of love, understanding and the great heart that characterizes us. And not only the children of the foundation had a pleasant time, but also they taught us and our families they are magnificent beings that, with their fraternal spirit, make us see the really important things in life, because, with the limitations that they have, they are infinitely superior in giving love, affection, and tenderness which was demonstrated in the different moments of contact that we had with them and that will last in our mind and in our hearts forever.

 

        Based on a video, and in the information provided by Asosiación de Padres, “Luz y Vida” was established in 1991, by Isabel García Martín, a Spanish nun who came to Colombia in 1970. The institution’s objective is focused on the realization and guarantee of the rights of children and teenagers who are in high-risk circumstances due to physical conditions or mental illnesses and need specialized help. The kids that live in the institution have visual, hearing, motor and cognitive impairments, but there are also kids without any disability that have had the opportunity to share and to really feel the experience of recognizing others and treating him or her as an equal in order to live in a community. On June 15th, 1993, it was created the “Asociasión Hogares Luz y Vida”, and on February 8th, 1999, was founded the school “Colegio de Integración Escolar Luz y Vida”, which ensures the right of education for all these kids without any discrimination.  

 

        Our school has been working since 2004 with this foundation and with the girls of eighth and ninth grade. Paula Cancino, from 8°B, shared her experience of that Saturday’s morning. She says: “Luz y Vida experience is a challenge in which you don’t know what you are facing”. The eighth graders had activities prepared for the kids, “for kids that we didn’t even know, but we expected everything to go well because we had prepared all this with love”. According to what Paula said, this activity made the eighth graders remove any kind of prejudice, and they received them in school with “open arms” and with a “willing heart” to make someone happy in just one morning. She stated that the “enriched ones” were not only the kids, but also the girls, their parents, and the teachers, as they realized how grateful they must be with life and how much they need to be able to enjoy moments of happiness. She believes that all the school students must live this experience, because “it gives you another perspective of what life and reality are, and only living it, you can understand the light these kids have and even with their disability, they give it to the world”.

 

        In the social service of our school, we often get the chances to meet Colombian people’s reality from different foundations like: “Talleres Esperanza”, “Nuevo Nacimiento”, “Michelin”, among others. One of the school’s principles is social awareness, and as we learn this, we are not only making people happy but also we pop the bubble I previously mentioned to understand people’s conditions and realities. In this case, the eighth graders had the opportunity to share and spend time with kids of their age, kids with no parents, kids with different disabilities, but kids with an enormous heart and a shining light that inspires people to help and donate to this beautiful institution. May God bless these kids today and always.