Carvajal has 7 major areas of programme focus, each with numerous specific projects (past, present, and potential). Public and political alliances, as well as community participation, are central strategies throughout. Organisers explain, "By granting communities the ability to gain the knowledge, opportunities and organizational abilities required to improve their conditions of life, the Carvajal Foundation trains people to overcome marginality and to become involved as active members of life in society. In this case, development is the result of a process of social integration, in which the poor desist from being passive recipients of government or charity programs and participate in the solution of their own problems and those of their community." The Foundation has a Christian vision of social organisation and works "within a framework of peace, freedom, justice, democracy, equity, tolerance and solidarity".

Programmes areas include:

1. Popular Housing: aims to support communities in the design, planning, and execution of owner-built housing and the development of surrounding areas.
   
   • Includes technical assistance workshops, the production of construction materials by the community itself, and the development of appropriate technologies for the geographical and environmental conditions of the districts concerned. It also includes training in the administration of construction as part of an effort to reduce costs and completion times, the development of small businesses in the community, and the contracting of credit with the banks.
2. Primary Health Care: aims to broaden coverage of integrated health services.
   
   • The strategy of the programme has 4 basic lines of action: inter-sector action, community participation, technological development, and improved health administration. Community volunteers work on projects designed to reduce child mortality, to widen access to health services, and to extend the coverage of immunisation programmes.
3. Education: aims to improve education services, support the efforts of the communities, and create methodological models of participation that can be replicated elsewhere in Colombia.
   
   • Includes a Teaching Center that supports the work of teachers and pupils' learning in the schools; Local Education Management, which encourages quality improvement programmes for education; and Environmental Education, an effort to protect the environment. As part of this programme, a Community Public Libraries Network was strengthened and computerised.
4. Basic Community Services: aims for integrated community development by promoting economic welfare and community education. Also provides essential goods and services, food and education, and housing and health.
   
   • There are 3 Basic Services Centers, one in each Aguablanca commune. These centres focus on the generation of employment and the provision of basic services and goods, which are designed to help reduce the cost of living in the area. There is a special programme for small business owners that provides business training in sales and management. People have access to basic commodities at below-market prices. "Materials banks" serve as a form of support for housing construction in the area.
5. Small Business Development: aims to contribute to the development of businesses in the city and surrounding areas, and to increase income and improve its distribution throughout the community. Emphasis is placed on the integrated development of the small business owner and his or her family context.
   
   • Training (related to job skills), technical advice, consulting, and loan applications and management. For example, 175 youngsters, from a group of 4,000 who participated in the government programe Youth in Action, were trained in metalwork, gas station service, bakery, and hospital cleaning. The courses included psychological support and entrepeneurial consulting with the aim of raising participants' self-esteem.
6. Environmental Improvement: aims to create an awareness of the environment in the community, especially with regard to the generation of employment and the raising of investment capital associated with activities such as recycling.
   
   • The Aguablanca community has organised itself to collect waste materials which have some industrial use; the proceeds of sales have been used to finance basic services in water supplies, sewer systems, electricity and street paving. Cali's municipal government is now administrating the programme.
7. Broadcasting: aims to spread culture and encourage the development of values in society.
   
   • The Carvajal Foundation's radio station broadcasts classical music and cultural programmes for 18 hours a day in several cities of Cauca Valley's Department. The station has a collection of some 50,000 works and has a computerised repertoire to ensure rapid programming. The station offers a free information service to cultural groups so that they might inform citizens about the various activities they offer (Cultural Newsletters are transmitted daily and the Proartes Cultural Belletini is transmitted once per week).

Development Issues

Economic Development, Environment, Education, Health.

Since 1981, The Carvajal Foundation's primary area of activity has been the district of Aguablanca, a very poor district of Cali with 350,000 inhabitants living in an area of less than 6 square miles.