My New Family: changing lives by bringing hope and happiness
MY NEW FAMILY
This is an educational sponsorship programme that changes lives by giving children and young people the opportunity to complete their basic education, even when they lack the essential resources to do so. Through this initiative, they receive the support needed to stay in school and thrive academically.
Thanks to this programme, pupils from the five schools built and the three refurbished by the Foundation benefit from educational sponsorship, which provides them with an annual school supply kit, nutrition plans, health promotion, ill health prevention initiatives, and more.
By carrying out this work, the Foundation helps to reduce school dropout rates, ensuring that children receive an education rooted in strong values. These values contribute to fostering a deep sense of cultural identity and to strengthening the emotional and social intelligence of the wider community.
The Foundation’s work extends beyond Colombia. In India, through close collaboration between our teams in England and Switzerland, together with Global Concerns India, we have provided educational scholarships to children in schools and orphanages. These scholarships cover tuition fees, uniforms, school supplies and a nutritious daily snack — essentials that remove barriers to learning and restore children’s sense of dignity and belonging.
Volunteers from England have also travelled to New Delhi to meet with pupils, identify needs, and run value-based workshops that encourage children to dream, study, and grow in confidence. This international partnership reflects our shared commitment to building brighter futures.
Activities
The programme supports pupils’ academic development while also nurturing their growth as good citizens, through engaging educational and recreational activities that create meaningful learning experiences for the entire school community.
To achieve this, we work directly with children, their families and teachers through our Personal Development and Values strategy. This approach strengthens valuable and important aspects of a person’s character, including self-esteem, learning strategies, social skills, values and virtues.
PROGRAMME SUCCESS STORIES
There has been an increase in active participation from parents and teachers in communities we support throughout each phase of project implementation: introduction, familiarisation, adoption, management and autonomy.
This has been made possible through experiential workshops delivered as part of the Personal Development and Values strategy. These sessions help strengthen self-esteem, learning strategies, social skills, values and virtues within the community, particularly among children.
By applying this approach, the programme has fostered values-based attitudes and behaviours, enabling better relationships and a sense of harmony among all members of the school community.
PROGRAM ACHIEVEMENTS
In some of the beneficiary communities, active participation from parents and teachers has increased in the implementation stages (installation, familiarisation, ownership, management, and autonomy) of the projects.
This has been made possible due to experiential meetings developed under the Human Development and Values strategy, aimed at strengthening self-esteem, teaching methods, social skills, values, and virtues within the community, especially among children.
The application of this strategy has enabled beneficiaries to develop virtuous attitudes and behaviours that promote better coexistence and harmonious relationships among various stakeholders within the educational community.
Health promotion and ill health prevention days
Every year, the Foundation organises these days to provide medical care in speech therapy, dentistry, general medicine, nutritional monitoring of height and weight, and deworming treatments
Nutrition plan
A comprehensive and well-balanced nutrition plan is designed for pupils to address food insecurity. Cases were identified where some children arrived at school poorly nourished or, in some instances, having had nothing to eat at all – putting their health at risk, hindering their ability to learn and affecting their focus and concentration. For this reason, they receive a balanced breakfast and snacks daily during the school day.
The Foundation in England has supported pupils at the schools in Chipatá, in Santander, Colombia, and currently sponsors children at the Pulitchamana School in La Guajira, Colombia, where students from the Wayuu indigenous community of the region are enrolled.
But there is still so much more to do.
Every day, children in the communities we serve face the real risk of leaving school simply because their families cannot afford the basics — a uniform, a hot meal, or the cost of school supplies. Without support, too many bright, hopeful young lives are held back by poverty.
That’s where our sponsors step in.
Our sponsors are the reason children can walk proudly into school with a backpack on their shoulders, a meal in their stomachs, and a future to look forward to. They are the quiet heroes behind every smile, every lesson learned, and every child who dares to dream beyond their circumstances.
For just £38 a month, you can become that person for a child — the one who opens the door to education, dignity and hope.
This isn’t just a donation. It’s a transformation.
