Colombia: Adventist young people join efforts for community outreach programs

Hundreds of young people marched gathered at the San Nicolas Plaza in Barranquilla, North Colombia, after marching through the streets of the city on Oct. 6, 2012. The march demonstrations were part of a joint venture between the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the city’s social and tourism office for community outreach programs. Image by Dubiel Quintero.

October 26, 2012 – Barranquilla, Colombia…Shirley Ruedas/IAD Staff

More than 400 children and young people from throughout the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Barranquilla, Colombia joined the city’s office of social programs and tourism to benefit the community. The two-hour march demonstrations gathered Adventurer, Pathfinders and Master Guide members to the Plaza San Nicolás in Barranquilla, Colombia, to perform a series of marches before a crowd of onlookers, on Oct. 6, 2012.

Tourism Police representative Arnulfo Hernandez, in charge of Barranquilla’s social and touristic campaign, spoke highly of the Adventist Church and thanked church leaders and young people for joining his office’s social efforts.

“This is the first time that I’ve seen such an event in conjunction with the Seventh-day Adventist Church,” said Hernandez.

Church leaders were eager to collaborate with the young volunteers as an opportunity to witness, church leaders said.

“Our main purpose was to show the police authorities that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is ready to collaborate in social programs organized by the organization,” said Edgar Borja, treasurer for the church in the Atlantic region. “This is so significant because it is the first time that the [Adventist] Church gathered in such an important public place in Barranquilla to witness.”

The joint venture came about after Sargeant Jairo Polo, director for the tourism police in the Atlantic region, walked by a health expo organized by 40 Adventist volunteers during the church’s community impact program coined as The Great Hope Caravan last month in Puerto Colombia’s main plaza, Borja said. Conversations followed among the two and led to upcoming joint efforts.

Already the office of has enlisted some 4,500 Adventist volunteers to take part in support of a large event to collaborate with the office that manages the city’s water resources.

City leaders said that this upcoming project will be the first time in which some 6,000 volunteers, 4,500 of them Seventh-day Adventists, will plant the first seed in a cultural project to beautify, improve and preserve the city’s public parks.

To find out more about the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North Colombia and its initiatives, visit http://www.unioncolombiana.org.co