Colombia: Fighting poverty

Opened in 1989, the FXB Homes are based on the concept of Tender Loving Care: the conviction that children who are orphaned, HIV-positive or suffering from AIDS, will have a better and longer life if they are welcomed into a family environment, surrounded by tenderness and benefiting from appropriate care.

The FXB Homes offered much more than medical care. From the babies to the teenagers who lived there, most were orphans or abandoned and could not count on the support and love of their parents. The team surrounding them had all the medical and human skills necessary for their well-being. The FXB House was their family, the setting for their childhood.

FXB has implemented the Tender Loving Care concept in Colombia, Brazil, Thailand and the United States.

At the time, the FXB House in Barranquilla represented a significant step forward in the fight against stigmatization and discrimination against HIV-infected people. It also represented an alternative means of access to palliative care for young patients.

With the arrival of antiretrovirals on the market and, consequently, the possibility of prolonging parents' lives, the FXB House was transformed into a day center, open to the community. It offered services tailored to the needs of the children and their families, such as nutritional support, medical care and HIV treatment, psychosocial support, extracurricular education and support, and HIV prevention and testing. Rebuilding the social fabric of orphans who had been reintegrated into their biological families or foster families was an integral part of FXB's mission.

In 2011, FXB Colombia launched its first VillageFXB poverty eradication program in an extremely disadvantaged district of Barranquilla. It will subsequently be replicated in another outlying district of the city, as well as in Bogotá. Malnutrition, disease, unsanitary housing... the poorest people living there face a variety of complex challenges. It would have been a mistake to focus solely on income! Partial aid, addressing only one cause of poverty, is not a sufficient solution to overcome it.

Our VillageFXB model of economic and community development enabled us to provide a comprehensive response to the fundamental causes of their poverty over a three-year period, by simultaneously acting on its predominant factors. The aim was also to combat gender discrimination and balance relations between men and women, so that the latter, who are more exposed to poverty, could have access to the same economic and social opportunities.