Canada: understand how Shape Colombia changes lives of trainees and students at the same time

By Bilal Zafar - Canada
International Development Specialist

The days I’ve spent in Colombia will go down in my life as some - if not the very - best days of my life. Colombia shaped me much more and had more of a profound impact on my life than I could have ever imagined. Working with the children of Porfirio Barba Jacob School, seeing their passion and commitment to learning revived my own passion towards my educational endeavors. Living and working with amazing people from all around the world, all very different in their own ways yet all strikingly similar in the sense that they’re all global citizens, changed the way I think about the world - it really isn’t such a scary place anymore.

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When I first came to Colombia I knew what was expected of me, I had to teach English at a school, encourage the children to pursue further English education, and to excite them about all the opportunities they can pursue around the world. To be fairly honest with you, I had no real idea how I was going to accomplish any of this. Not knowing a word of Spanish could make it difficult to be an English teacher (when my students only knew Spanish). Encouraging the students to pursue further English education would be even more difficult, because how do I encourage them when they couldn’t understand me? Exciting them about the opportunities around the world sounded near impossible, because the first two problems were crippling. However, once I got to the actual school and started teaching I realized that none of these were big challenges. They could be easily overcome thanks to one factor I hadn’t considered before: the commitment of the children. The kids so badly want to learn English that they’re willing to come to an extracurricular class and give it their all.

Now stepping outside of the classroom, the Shape Colombia project has as much to do with meeting and interacting with the other 199 interns as it does with being a teacher. I was fortunate enough to meet people from over 50 countries during the five months that I spent in the project, and I was even more fortunate to have had the opportunity to form some friendships which will last a lifetime. One guy in particular that I lived with was from Taiwan, when he first arrived he was a tad bit socially awkward and very reserved, we couldn’t even hug this guy! The five months he spent with my roommates and I changed him completely and he grew a great deal as a person, I will always cherish him hugging, because I know it meant a lot more coming from him.

So let’s talk about Colombia itself for a bit, quite simply: it’s pretty awesome, but here’s why! The people are extremely hospitable and kind, I was fortunate enough to become good friends with a few Colombian university students who invited my friends and I to their houses, showed us their city, and introduced us to some awesome food. The country itself is ridiculously beautiful, in my last week in Bogota I was blown away by how beautiful of a city it was, even got a little mad at myself for not appreciating it as much, and that’s just one city!

While I was there I had the chance to visit the city of Medellin - a city so beautiful and advanced that I’m considering moving their in the future. Also was fortunate enough to drop by the small town of Guatape, I have never been into small towns, but then again I’ve never seen a town as beautiful as Guatape. The last place in Colombia I visited was the beautiful tropical island of San Andres. Spending five days on the beautiful beaches of San Andres made it difficult to adjust to the frigid cold of Toronto.

So why should you come to Colombia, why should you put your life on hold and make a journey to a country most people know very little about? Because it’s worth it. It’s worth it to leave the comfort of everything you know, everything that feels safe and certain, just to venture out into a country you barely know in order to pursue an experience. An experience that will change your life and you as a person. If you want to get more out of your life, if you want more for yourself, then take the chance, and join Shape Colombia. 

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