Education is the best investment in progress
The Foundation's educational philosophy — from the garden to the laboratory, from the rural school to university — told through two real scholarship holders.
If one conviction runs through everything the Foundation does, it is this: education is the best investment in progress. Not as a slogan, but as a method: walking with a person from the school garden to the science laboratory, from the rural school to university, and forming agents of change who return to lift up their community. We call it the frailejón cycle made human: grow slowly, put down roots, sustain others.
Two real stories from our scholarship holders show that cycle at work.
Mary Yaneth Vera is 22 and comes from a farming family in the rural area of Los Cubales. With the Lotus Scholarship she studies Environmental Administration, and her path already has a milestone: her technical graduation in Roldanillo, in May 2026. What makes us proudest, though, is where she spends her free hours: as a volunteer with the Tierra Programme, supporting the school gardens of the Pijao and La Mariela schools. Yesterday’s scholarship holder is today’s garden teacher. Her testimony fits in one sentence of her own: “Opportunities can transform lives.”
Jeison Camilo Villegas Martínez studies Modern Languages at the University of Quindío and, from the Pijao Node house, runs a small venture making 3D-printed and cold-porcelain figures. In his letter of gratitude he wrote: “Infinite thanks to the Frailejones Foundation and to the donors who support the Pijao Node… Your support allows us to move forward and reach our goals.”
Neither Mary Yaneth nor Jeison is an isolated case: they are the programme’s design. As of May 2026 the Foundation has awarded 18 university scholarships (17 undergraduate and 1 postgraduate), and many of our volunteers are former scholarship holders. Receive support, graduate, give back: when that circle closes, the investment is no longer in one person — it is in several generations of the same community.