ICDP IN MEDELLIN, COLOMBIA 

The above photo was recently sent from the project Acoger by ICDP trainer Carolina Montoya. Carolina has trained the ICDP facilitator Monica Gallego, a professional from the department for Family Development, at the FUNLAM university, who can be seen in the photo conducting an activity  with a group of mothers.

ICDP has a ten years long history of cooperation with the Luis Amigo University (FUNLAM) in Medellin. The university has been developing an integrated project of assistance, called "Acoger" in an attempt to alleviate the lives of some of the many families that are continuously violently displaced due to the guerrilla war in Colombia. Some of these families are now living in temporary settlements up in the mountains surrounding the city of Medellin. During 2005, as part of the Acoger project 150 caregivers received the ICDP programme. During the current semester 120 new mothers will participate in ICDP.

On August 2nd the first group meeting with mothers and children for this semester took place. In parallel with the group meeting with mothers, was also an ICDP meeting with children applying the ICDP concept directly in the interaction with the children. The turnout for the first day this semester was impressive; a total of 17 mothers came to the little square in front of the government building in Altamira, while the other three groups, of children, had approximately 60 children showing up! The Acoger team uses their bus with a private room for individual psychological consultancy, a place to store and hand out small snacks during the meetings and a parasol on each side of the bus which makes the hour long meetings comfortable in the hot sun in the hills of Medellin.