EACL Community outreach
EACL has been developing an outreach program within the vicinity of Universidad Externado de Colombia in the Barrio Egipto, a historical neighborhood up the hill above the university campus. While being a historical heritage site with its colonial style cobbled stone alleys overlooked by Bogotas eastern mountains, it has been home to conflicts between rival gangs and turmoil. This has contributed to security problems and a lowering of the standard of living in the area, which has resulted in the Egipto community itself seeking ameliorative solutions to its problems with the assistance of university training programs in areas ranging from cooking to small business administration.
EACL Support in the areas of Language and Art
Breaking Borders is one of the groups from the Barrio Egipto which has received help from the outreach program. It is a tourist guide company developed by former gang members in the Egipto neighborhood, who were previously incarcerated for their activities, and lost family members to gang conflict.
Breaking Borders has used graffiti to narrate the history of the Egipto neighborhood going back to its indigenous Muisca ancestors and complimented with pictures of ancestors of the community. Graffiti has been very effective in narrating history, culture and community feeling to foreign tourists, who often do not speak much Spanish.
Other Forms of Support
- English for Egipto
In 2016, the English area from the Finance, Government and International Relations faculty, together with the Proyectos de Extensión Social office, and as part of the Egipto Vivo program, started providing basic English classes to members of the Breaking Borders organization, which allowed some of their tour guides to give tours with basic descriptions of their community, history and feelings to foreign tourists.
Since 2017, the English for Egipto project expanded its reach beyond the Breaking Borders group, including now other members of the Egipto community, as well as from La Candelaria, and even from some neighborhoods of Santa Fé. Some English teachers volunteered to continue providing classes to this new group of people, in order to help them broaden their job opportunities, and improve their interaction with foreign tourists in their small businesses.
In the last two years, as part of the EACL projects, English for Egipto has had a shift in its focus and methodology to involve the Externado community more. Nowadays, the Trainers for Egipto program is more student-based, in that now a small group of teachers is in charge of training some Externado students who volunteer to provide basic English classes for Egipto and La Candelaria neighbors. Those students become familiar with different pedagogical tools and learn basic methodological concepts to be able to carry out the classes with some members of the community. Particularly in this last year, there was a special emphasis on remote learning due to the unusual circumstances brought by the Covid-19 pandemic. This new emphasis allowed the program to continue, and it also allowed the program to model synchronous and asynchronous learning.
