Colombia: Capacity building, the Escuela Nueva and rural people
30 October 2007
FAO Headquarter, Rome, Italy

The lessons learned from the Escuela Nueva (EN)Model and Foundation in addressing capacity building for rural people was presented by Vicky Colbert, coauthor and founder of the Escuela Nueva Model. She presented an overview of the Escuela Nueva system and its main components, and highlight the main research findings and potential of this model, both in learning materials, community participation and teacher training, in promoting attitudes and behavioral changes in children, youth and families, specially related to nutrition and food security. Escuela Nueva Model originated in Colombia, and became a national policy reaching approx 20,000 rural schools in the mid 80`s. It is presently applied in 14 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries reaching approx 5 million children.

Vicky Colbert is also director of Escuela Nueva –Volvamos a la Gente Foundation, a non profit Ngo involved in maintain the quality and sustainability of the model. EN was selected as the best rural primary education experience in the LAC region, according to the First Comparative International Study on Quality of Education, led by UNESCO Latin American Laboratory for Quality Education. It has been visited by 35 countries and The Human Development Report of United Nations in the year 2000 selected it as one of the three main achievements of the country. In 1989 the World Bank selected it as one of the three most outstanding reforms in developing countries. She was one of the four awardees of the Inaugural Clinton Global Citizen Award in the recent Clinton Global Initiative that took place in New York late September.