Our Neighborhood, Moravia Reflecting on a practice of accumulation and the big potential hidden in little moments in Medellín.

We want to build with soul, with identity, with memory. Because for us, a project exists before it exists. Once it's built, it doesn't start from zero. It carries forward everything that came before it.

Our foundation, Oasis Urbano, started from the desire to support our community of Moravia in our struggle for our right to the city. It is rooted in the exchange of relationships, cultures, and knowledge that already exist here. People here have built their homes with so much effort, with sweat and tears; they are part of the territory. Rather than arriving at any challenge with a preconceived solution, we’ve started by getting to know our neighbors. That’s how the Escalera Oasis Tropical, the restoration of a set of dangerous, crumbling stairs, became our first project, built communally and entirely with donated materials.

We work first in public spaces — a plaza, a basketball court, wherever people already gather — because those places, once improved, invite people to stay. But staying isn't enough on its own; the space still has to be activated. That's where the cinema, the mobile kitchen we built to carry cooking classes into the alleyways, and public festivals all come in. We make ourselves visible and available so people know they can come talk to us and get involved. We form key relationships with grassroots organizations and community leaders who steward these public spaces. Through these relationships we’re able to develop programs like the community cinema. Each of these collective experiences builds trust.

Cultural and community activities are our way to involve people in the processes of community transformation. When we first started cooking with others, it was to give us the strength to keep working. Now, the cooking lab and mobile kitchen are a key part of our local identity. Through the process of sharing food and cooking with others, we nourish our community, strengthen oral traditions, and cultivate a spirit of service. The boys and girls who join the cooking lab — as they chop, stir and serve with us — start to see themselves as community role models. Some of them first came to us not knowing how to cook an egg. Now, they’re not only preparing food for the neighborhood, but also pursuing studies in gastronomy. Through food, these young people have developed autonomy, self-care, and care for those with whom they share their lives.

Roberto, a neighbor, started with us on Escaleras Oasis Tropical. At that point he was a construction worker who came in the morning, worked, and left. He didn't socialize, didn't talk to anybody. Nine years later, that's changed. He is thinking all the time about how to improve our work, making sure nothing is wasted, taking part in every event. He is really proud of the projects we've developed together and brings his own children to the foundation each weekend to learn alongside everyone else.

There is also Kleida, who lived right across from the stairs when we started that project. Our relationship began with us asking for a hand here and there. “Can we maybe store some materials and tools here? Can you maybe make us a coffee? Some soup?” And that's how we started to cook with her. Today, she runs our cooking classes — and is a student herself in nearly every other class we offer.

Schools in Moravia are overcrowded. It is difficult for teachers to give any child individual attention and home isn’t always a place where parents have the time or resources to encourage creativity or cultural pursuits. Children needed space where they felt free to create, where they would get more attention and strengthen areas of knowledge they wanted to explore more freely. Together with our community, we built Taller Tropical, a bamboo workshop that provided a home for experimental learning activities. Just being outside of school in a different environment put the students in a mindset that allowed for more freedom in learning. It became clear how much young people needed access to spaces like this to help build good study habits and a love of learning.

Taller Tropical had to come down after a few years; we'd been renting space that was never meant to be a permanent home for the center. But each idea gives life to the next. We knew we had a duty to continue providing these learning spaces that provide children across the community with important tools and life skills. So, the idea for the Escuela Popular Moravia* was born. We saw just how instrumental popular education spaces are for children, especially when they might otherwise have too much idle time. Instead of being glued to a phone or a TV, they have a meaningful alternative. Children feel part of a group of peers where they are free to learn together and even to teach each other. This approach to education has strengthened their leadership skills, their initiative and confidence to feel like they have knowledge to impart, too. Those experiences convinced us that the Escuela Popular could become a permanent home for the kinds of learning, creativity and community care that Moravia deserves.

When we picture what the Escuela Popular will be like once it’s finished, we see a Wednesday afternoon at two o'clock. Mama Chila’s club is meeting with other senior residents of the barrio on the first floor so they don’t have to climb any stairs. They sit together, embroidering and sewing while on the other side of the room, the cooking lab team is preparing food. Up one floor people have come to do pottery and wood carving. Handicrafts are important to us here in Colombia, they’re a big part of our cultural identity, and this studio space is able to support the local artisans to produce their work. There are rooms where young community leaders come for work and for meetings. On the open rooftop, music is playing and people are taking a class and rehearsing a scene for a play.

Walking through the neighborhood now, we see that the park outside our foundation is greener than it was before. There are hummingbirds feeding in the community garden that we are tending and growing.

It's difficult for a self-built territory to appear on the 'official' city map. Moravia used to appear as just a tiny dot. We were just a dot. Now, we are on the map, and when we see it there and we can go to our homes on the map and see all that, it builds dignity in us. It empowers us. It helps us understand our own social fabric, and makes it visible to everyone else.