After 50 years, a new school is being built in Cajamarca (Tolima) thanks to a renowned restaurant chain

The La Leona school was built in a joint effort between the Government, the community of Cajamarca (Tolima) and private companies. (Crepes & Waffles)

On the morning of Saturday, September 23, the inhabitants of Cajamarca, in the west of the department of Tolima, celebrated with the inauguration of the La Leona school, which was built in a joint effort between the community, the Ministry of Education and the renowned chain of Crepes & Waffles restaurants that invested 9,000 million pesos for this project.

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In the aforementioned portfolio they explained that the work was a product of the works for taxes mechanism where the restaurant chain began working in 2020, as a tribute to the inhabitants of that municipality from where they source products such as arracacha and mandarin lemon.

“The community helped us understand that the future of the country lies in better education. Here the dream of rebuilding and relocating the La Leona School was born. We united the talent of the architect Simón Hosie and Paola Macía for the redesign (…) including the knowledge of the community, and the support of the Ministry of Education (sic)”, they said from the official account of the social network X of the restaurants .

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The Minister of Education, Aurora Vergara Figueroa, accompanied the inauguration of the new facilities of the educational institution and highlighted this cooperation.

“The contributions of the private company to the Educational Spaces Plan as the center of community life and peace of the National Government, promote territorial equity and help overcome historical gaps in access to education,” he stated.

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Vergara added that they will continue working to continue to link private investment in the construction of educational establishments.

“The educational infrastructure plan will guide resources and efforts from different actors to reduce lags in physical and technological infrastructure in preschool, basic, middle and higher education, especially in rural areas and with a territorial approach,” he stated.

The director of Sustainability of the restaurant chain, Felipe Macías Fernández, highlighted that it was an educational and social project for a community that has also contributed to them.

“The work has a lot of meaning because we give back a part of all the work that these communities provide us through the agricultural products they supply for our restaurants. “It is a way of giving thanks and showing that you can do things well, you can work as a team between the public and private sectors, having the well-being of the country and its communities as an objective (sic),” he said.

The Ministry of Education reported that 425 students will benefit from this new school and it has preschool, primary and high school classrooms, a library, dining room, auditorium, kitchen, green areas, orchards, sports fields and laboratories.

“Colombia has a great future with great agricultural resources and Cajamarca is an example of this, where there is also a cult for food harvesting to the extent that it is done in a sustainable way thinking about the generations that will succeed us (sic),” stated Bernaín Vargas, representative of the Biorganic Agricultural Association of Cajamarca (Asabio).

The facilities were also designed so that the community can enjoy its spaces extracurricularly, on weekends.

“The project seeks a dialogue with the area and customs of the region. That is why materials made in Cajamarca were used for construction and local architectural knowledge was included. Furthermore, the classrooms from first to eleventh grade were designed in an ascending line, on the side of the mountain, each one with its own crop garden,” said project architect Simón Hosie.

Curiously, during the works of the educational establishment that began in the middle of the pandemic, archaeological remains were found and recovered.

“14 pre-Hispanic tombs were found, a Colombian historical heritage that we could not ignore. Some of them have never been seen before and others are between 2,500-400 years old (sic),” said the restaurant chain.

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