The Bright Kites Foundation

Our Plan

Using English to empower Colombia’s future generations

 

 

The Bright Kites Foundation offers Colombian students from disadvantaged backgrounds an opportunity for personal and academic growth. Our aim is to send students from schools from the lowest strata neighbourhoods in Medellin, Pereira and Cali to study English in a language school in the UK for a month.

Our pilot programme ran in Summer 2019, bringing two selected students to the UK for a month.

During their time in London our BKF Ambassadors:

  • Stay with British families, practising their English every day 
  • Take part in Bayswater College’s Junior Summer Camp (English classes, cultural activities and excursions)
  • Visit universities to get a taster of higher education in the UK
  • Record their experiences and create a log of their progress to take back to Colombia, enabling them to become language ambassadors

As language ambassadors, they will give a presentation about their time away, bringing materials and ideas back with the goal of promoting language learning. They will also help us decide who will receive the grant the following year.

Both students are in grade 10 and this programme will facilitate their final year at secondary school, hopefully positively impacting their final English language grades and their opportunities for further education post-secondary school.

A key objective of ours is to contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goal no. 4 – “to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

The selection process

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Students who wish to apply for the competition will need to make a video about themselves as English learners and why they want to study in the UK. It can be a song, rap, poem or a ‘day in my life’ style video.

A decision will be made  based on the student’s level of English, motivation and effort put into the video. The board will also ask the English teachers about the attitude of the student towards the subject and their grades.

We take into account the students’ future plans and those who are looking at studying at university (scholarships and bursaries) will be supported throughout their final year at school. We hope this experience will help students in their applications and encourage them to believe in their own abilities.