CINDES celebrates 50 years – El Diario

Special education

The Center for Inclusion and Social Development CINDES celebrates 50 years at the service of the Pereiran community. Patricia Marín Bedoya is the manager of the foundation and shared with El Diario her experience as manager and member of this family that works daily to provide girls, boys, adolescents and adults with a space for training in formal and informal education.

CINDES was created on April 6, 1973 by a group of women members of the female association of professionals AFEPRO, among the women the participation of Norma Rendón, psychologist, Edilma Escobar, dentist, Inés Hurtado, lawyer, Martha García de Orrego, pediatrician, Carmen Julia de Parra, speech therapist, Eloisa Marulanda, physiotherapist, Luisa Uribe de Botero, bacteriologist, Graciela Rodríguez, lawyer and Amparo Vásquez de Sarabia, decorator.

These women saw the need to create a specialized training center for boys and girls with intellectual disabilities. At that time, there was no other institution in the region that responded to this need. Then, on April 23, 1973, CINDES began its work in a rented space and a team made up of a director, a psychologist, a speech therapist, three teachers and 21 students. On February 28, 1980, thanks to the management carried out with the municipal government, the foundation received a lot on loan for 99 years, on which the headquarters were built with the necessary adjustments for the care of people with cognitive and motor disabilities, the The work was inaugurated in 1984.

Specialists in the care of children, adolescents and adults with cognitive disabilities such as Down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy, Alzheimer’s and others.

The importance of specialized education

When CINDES started, it was a special attention center, but in 2009 the Ministry of Education issued a decree with which special education disappeared, so that students with cognitive disabilities must be included in regular formal education schools.

However, thanks to its years of experience, the foundation has become an authority on the subject of education for people with intellectual disabilities, the integrated knowledge projects and the curriculum are adjusted according to the requirements of the students, who upon entering the the institution receive an assessment to recognize the competencies that the applicant possesses and in this way adjust the educational process so that it favors the strengthening of the competencies that they possess and allows them to discover new ones.

Professionals and humanists

Just as the specificity that children with disabilities should be educated in specialized institutions disappeared, special education careers also disappeared, although for many years the work team had the support of special educators, at this time it no longer exists this career, now the team is made up of teachers from different areas who have the experience of having worked with populations with these characteristics, in addition educators receive ongoing training thanks to multiple alliances with local and national universities.

Much more than education

Currently, the foundation has operating licenses from the Municipal Education Secretariat, ICBF and room as IPS for psychology and nutrition services and works thanks to the support of companies such as AUDIFARMA, Cartones y Papeles del Risaralda, Coomeva Cooperativa, Ciproba and the Distributor Homaz.

Non-formal education programs

Thanks to agreements with private and state institutions, CINDES offers students who finish their studies an option to continue their training, with SENA there is a course in bakery, gardening, handicrafts and painting. With the ICBF there is an agreement from You to You, for the strengthening of capacities.

Respect is the emblem value

Respect for difference and for the other human being is the main value promoted at CINDES. This value is born from the exercise of recognition that students make about themselves as people with cognitive disabilities that do not make them less valuable to society.

At this time, CINDES registers as an Educational Institution of formal education, so that the campus receives students with or without cognitive disabilities.

Good news

Currently, the foundation is working on the construction of an institutional plan to provide training for work and human development, thanks to the fact that the CINDES manager and with the help of her work team appeared before the Japanese embassy to build the room training that is already built. The inauguration will take place on April 26 with the presence of the Japanese ambassador.