The El Rio Foundation

we are the charity arm of Rio hostel BURITACA. we provide PEACE BUILDING, educational, sporting, environmental AND WELLBEING proGRAMMES to positively impact our local community and you can volunteer with us every day!

We work in a post-conflict zone on the North Caribbean coast of Colombia to provide fun, free, inclusive, reliable and impactful activities for 600+ young people. We have ten lead community programmes. Please click HERE to read a more in depth overview for each programme or HERE to watch our video introductions to each. They are:

1.       Academic Tutoring – We provide 24+ hours of tutoring each week to improve the education of 80+ children from five communities. Please click HERE to read our Impact report from 2023 and HERE to watch our Impact video report from 2024.

2.       El Rio Games – We provide multi-sports activities for 500+ young people. Our aim is to find every child in our local area an activity they love and can play regularly. All activities have a big focus on team-work and FUN and we love when hostel guests come along to support!

3.       Art – We provide six hours of Art classes each week to 60+ children from 4 communities particularly focusing on promoting environmental education.

4.       Dance – We run sixteen hours of Dance clubs each week to strengthen children’s dancing skills, as well as improving self-esteem, confidence and wellbeing. Please click HERE to see our dance groups performing at Carnaval in Santa Marta in February last year.

5.       Football - With the support of the FIFA Foundation, we provide eighteen football sessions a week to 350+ children. We are particularly proud to have set up the first ever junior girls community football league on the Troncal del Caribe. There are opportunities for guests to support our football activities every weekday :)

6.       Community English – We improve the level of English of 400+ children and 40+ adults in our local area every month by providing 60+ hours of English lessons.

7. Indigenous Community programme – We have been working in partnership with the community of “Quebrada del Sol/Mulkwakungui” for the past five years to include them in all our community programmes. This year, we are seeking external partners to help us deepen the impact of our programme. Please click HERE to read our Indigenous Community programme presentation for 2025.

8. Environmental education - To address the huge gaps in environmental knowledge in our local area, we teach environmental education to inspire positive and pro-active climate action from 600 young people and their families. Please read our full project plan HERE.

9. Little Kids’ Activities - We provide tailored educational and wellbeing support each week to 12+ 3-5 year olds in our local town as there is very little childcare support available..

10. Child Safeguarding and Wellbeing - We ensure safety and wellbeing of all participants on our programmes and ‘do no harm’ with an extremely pro-active implementation of our ‘Children First Child Protection Policy’. We also have a full-time Foundation psychologist providing one-on-one and group support to those who need it the most.

We are now looking for funding partners for all of the above programmes for 2025/26. If you are interested in any project in particular, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. If you would like to volunteer with us, please talk to one of our Foundation Activities volunteers or email foundation@elriohostel.com. We now have volunteering activities every day! Our Volunteer enjoyment rating from last year was 9.84/10.

If you would like to donate, you can do so on-site via your wristband and by cash or by card at the reception or the bar.

We welcome donations of any size and/or sports/art/educational materials :) 

You can ALSO donate by clicking THE BUTTON BELOW!

For the latest news and updates about the Foundation, please follow us on instagram @elriofoundation 

To read last year’s Annual Review, please click HERE

N.B. To fund our Foundation, which provides FREE, fun, Inclusive and Impactful activities for 600+ local children every week, a $1.30 donation (COP$5,000) will be added to the bill of everyone who stays at El Rio. If you would like to remove it from your bill or you would like to donate more, please talk to reception.