Pies Descalzos

Barefoot Foundation

Founded by Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, Fundacion Pies Descalzos (The Barefoot Foundation) is a United States and Colombian non-profit organization that focuses on the education and well-being of over 5,000 children in the world, and ultimately affects over 30,000, both in and out of the six schools.

Here is what Shakira has to say:

In Latin America, there are 52 million children living in poverty.  Among them, 30 million are hungry, even though the region produces three times the food they need.  Unfortunately, Latin America is the region of the world with less equity, where the breach between rich and poor is even bigger than in any other region.  The only way to close this breach is through education.

No child dreams of being violent, or being a criminal, or being a drug lord.  I think children have more innocent dreams.  If you as a child in any place of the world what they want to be when they grow up, they’ll always answer a professor, a lawyer, a doctor, a nurse, a pilot. Man is born good and society corrupts him.

The biggest satisfaction that anybody can feel in life is helping a child make their dreams come true and flourish.  If education is a right for any child, it is therefor a duty for the whole society.

If there is a way of changing the fate of a child that was born damned to live a life of poverty, that’s through education.  The fate of our children is in our hands and in what everyone of us is willing to do according to our possibilities.  

(Click the bottom-right box on the video to enlarge.)

According to the documentary, "there are approximately 26 million displaced in the world.  After Sudan and Iraq, Colombia is the country with most displaced population [with] 3.5 million people registered.  Today, the ‘Pies Descalzos’ Foundation is of benefit to 5,231 people, with its schools and education plans.” 

If you are reading this before August 1, 2012, please consider donating to Viajes con Quique in the upper-right corner.  All proceeds will go to toward school supplies for the children at the Barranquilla Pies Descalzos campus.  

Muchisimas gracias, 

Eric "Enrique" Feltes