Fundacion Tiempo de Juego

Tiempo de Juego is a non-profit entity that seeks to foster the adequate use of free time among children and youth in the most vulnerable areas of Colombia. The foundation seeks to distance children from the social ills that surround them and educate them through strategies such as sports and cultural activities. Tiempo de Juego's mission is to spawn social cohesion and development through sports, cultural, recreational, and formative tools whose purpose is the generation of competencies, promotion of values, and the effective use of free time in a responsible and conscientious manner, generating a positive and replicable impact towards a better quality of life for the community and its surroundings. Tiempo de Juego was established in 2006, as a project for the "Communication for Development" program through the "Universidad de la Sabana". After an exhaustive study for more than three years in Cazuca, one of the most marginalized, deprived and violent areas of our country, it was detected that the lack of education and excess of time of the youth, and the fact about 70 percent of the population is classified displaced, was making them more vulnerable to joining different gangs, drug addiction, incurring early pregnancies, as well as being part of the armed outlaw groups that recruit them for very little money. Using soccer as a recreational tool for value formation, accompanied by art workshops, cultural and educational courses, we gathered 400 children between 5 and 18, and the foundation began to inculcate the proper use of leisure time as a positive and useful way to encourage the kids into a brighter and more positive future. Ever since Tiempo de Juego began to operate, the children and young people have changed as has the neighborhood environment. When they celebrate goals or they read a book, this does not seem the most depressing sector of Cundinamarca area, which according to official statistics, over the past 5 years, has had more than 850 murders of young people; this is the area with the highest rate of displacement population second to Choco. A zone where poverty and malnutrition, joining the gangs to participate in the conflict is just a daily experience, where those who are growing only aspire to be part of an armed group that inhabit the area. Tiempo de Juego uses soccer as its main intervention tool to address social problems due to its capacity to convene people and its pedagogical possibilities. The foundation belongs to the football street world network, associated to the FIFA, and applies the FIFA approved rules of street football as the mechanism for the formation of values, formal education as a basis of democracy and the cultural workshops looking to build a fairer society. Also, we work out the values with the parents to achieve a proper family environment. Since 2008, Tiempo de Juego has opened another chapter in Cartagena, Atlantic Cost City, making possible those children and youth of "Las Faldas de la Popa" also to receive these benefits and rights.