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60-year old Nelson Pajaro has always been a warrior of life. Since Young age he has been struggling for defeating poverty and has become a symbol of hope and strength for the community. This Colombia-born man has worked with vulnerable people at all stages, trying to lift them up from difficult conditions and therefore help them to create a decent path in life.
One of the places where Pajaro works is Bucaramanga, a mid-size Colombian city where there are several slums. One of them, named Granjas de Provenza, has been hit by violence for ages and there are few options for education for the children that inhabit the territory. There, Pajaro decided to help, on a voluntary basis, refugee, migrant and local children and adolescents, whom for several reasons were not able to attend school. His program was called “street school” by the community and Nelson decided to teach photography lessons to the students.
He has been doing so for ten years now; previously, he tried to run the same initiative in a poor neighborhood located in Bogota, Colombia’s capital city, but the constant fights among local gangs forced him to leave and search for a new start, which happened at Bucaramanga. There, the Inclusive Cities, Communities of Solidarity Project -ICCS- was implementing actions to help migrants and locals overcome xenophobia. Pajaro new about the project, ICCS new about him, and the program decided to help his project by giving a donation of a photography camera which allowed the profesor to teach them the art of photography. Nowadays, 20 students receive clases from Pajaro.
But he does not only teach them photography; mathematics, gramar and ethics are some of the topics he covers in his classes, giving students knowledge and tools in order to supplement their lack of school education. He used to teach classes in a place in which there were no proper chairs or board, so conditions negatively affected the learning process. That is where the Inclusive Cities Project came into picture again. Since the program is currently implementing tactic urbanism actions, an open class room was built in January 2023 so the children would have a proper place to study.
This new place is not only where education takes place; friendship, inclusion and integration play an important role in the open class room.
“Here you fight against weather and noise. The idea was to have a place in which we do not bother anyone and no one bothers us and have the kids take the classes with total calm and no stress. We have done photography exhibitions and students will son do their own minute-film and, why not, a short-film sharing their life experiences. Inclusive Cities has supported us in changing this children’s life for good”, says Pajaro while smiling and taking a sip of coffee.
