Our Key Achievements
COTA was established in 1991 to address the plight of children living in the sewers in Bogotá - Colombia's capital city. Thanks in great part to our work children no longer live in the sewers in Bogotá.
COTA has supported the Albergue since 2008, developing a pioneering support programme for children returning to their families after residential care. Albergue has over 50 years’ experience working with street and working children and their families. Over this time the staff have observed the many challenges experienced when a child returns to their family and have learnt why so many children too often end up back on the streets. For many children, returning to their families was traumatic because the family context had not changed since the child entered care and often the family was not prepared for receiving the child. A child’s subsequent return to the street was often inevitable.
In response, and with support from COTA, Albergue designed its “Post Institutional Care Programme”, supporting both families and children as the child returns home. The programme contains elements of counselling, practical support for parents in finding employment and accessing services, and accompaniment for children in planning their future. Their most recent evalusation for a minimum of one year and were managing to develop positive family relationships.
In 2005, COTA and our partner ACJ (the YMCA in Colombia) secured a 5 year grant from the Big Lottery Fund to develop an educational model for working children, who represent the largest group of children excluded from education in Colombia. The project has helped hundreds of children move away from child labour and into formal education; and the model, gaining formal recognition from education authorities, now has the potential to help 1000s more across the country. You can read more about our this partnership on our blog - Education for working children - COTA's The Big Lottery Project cames to a triumphant end. COTA continues to support ACJ.
In 2002 COTA helped establish Colombia's first leaving care programme - the Fundación Formación de Futuros (FFF) - a then unaddressed issue affecting some of Colombia's most marginalised children and young people. In 2009 the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare estimated that around 67,000 children and young people were living in government-supported care homes. Most are there as a result of economic difficulties, violence, abuse, displacement, abandonment or threats of recruitment into illegal armed forces. FFF works with these young people, helping them to prepare for their independent living once they have left care. FFF is now the leading authority on leaving care, providing information, support and training to institutions and care leavers nationwide and influencing national policy.
COTA developed Colombia's first child-led educational strategy aimed at protecting children from the threat of landmines. The project, led by Fundación Restrepo Barco has reached children in heavily mined regions, empowering them to recognise landmine threats, adopt safe behaviour, and train other children to do the same. An educational kit was also produced to transmit this methodology. This project has now been taken up by organisations including UNICEF and the EU to benefit thousands more Colombian children.
Between 1995 and 2002, COTA has sponsored over 80 medical visits by the PAC flying doctors to remote and war-torn rainforest regions, reaching over 2,000 sick children.
COTA's ‘Buy-a-Brick appeal' in 1998 raised £100,000 to build a new residential home for 120 street children in a city in the coffee-growing region.
