- Maria
Hola! My name is Maria and I live on the northern coast of South America in the country of Colombia. In fact, I'm closer to you than you might think - can you believe that parts of my country are nearer to Miami than Miami is to New York?! There are 42 million people in Colombia, making us the third most populous country in Latin America. Although both the Andes mountains and the Amazon rainforest cross through Colombia, most of our people live in urban areas.
Want to know more about my country? Click here!
- Colombia Map (Source: UNICEF)
Capital City: Bogota
Language(s): Spanish
Religion(s): Roman Catholic (90%)
Communicating WIth Your Sponsored Orphan:
Hola! (Hi!)
Buenos dias. (Good day.)
Como estas? (How are you?)
Me llamo?. (My name is...)
Did You Know?
- 6.5 million children (that’s 38.9% of all children in Colombia) live below the poverty level.*
- Only 60 of every 100 children who start primary school in Colombia make it all the way through to finish 8th grade.*
- Estimated numbers of street children in Colombia’s capital city of Bogota are up to 110,000, according to UNICEF. On the street, many children turn to inhalants to dull their hunger pains and escape their world of desperate poverty.
- UNICEF reports that between 6,000 and 7,000 children in Colombia have been recruited by illegal armed groups to become child soldiers.
- Ni para la Paz, a group of Colombian children, were the youngest persons ever to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (in 1998, 1999, and 2000).
*statistics from Youth With A Mission Int'l
