My name is Marta Inés Vergara Mesa. I hold a degree in Rural Education from FUNDAEC’s University Center for Rural Well-Being, and I am also a psychologist and neuropsychologist. I live in Antioquia and grew up in a town very close to one of the places where the SAT program began in this department. In 1987, the Universidad Católica de Oriente, CORNARE, and the Regional Training Center of the Parish of El Peñol—which had been experimenting for two decades with appropriate methodologies for rural education—reached out to FUNDAEC to implement the SAT methodology in Eastern Antioquia. That same year, the first meeting was held with FUNDAEC and representatives from various institutions, where the tutor training plan was established. In 1988, after graduating from high school, I joined this initiative as part of the pilot group.
We started the program in five villages and quickly demonstrated that SAT effectively responded to the educational needs of young people who had no access to secondary studies.
These youth also began to initiate community projects. Following a positive evaluation, the first inter-institutional agreement was signed, which made it possible to expand coverage to 12 new groups and strengthen those already in place. At that stage, I joined the administrative team as a student evaluator while continuing to serve as a tutor. This marked the beginning of my personal and professional development through various roles: tutor, coordinator, evaluator, and student of the Bachelor’s in Rural Education.
The SAT program grew gradually in Antioquia over 25 to 30 years through agreements with different institutions. It reached a significant percentage of the municipalities in the department and benefited tens of thousands of rural students. Beyond preparing youth to complete their high school education, SAT focused on forming leaders within their communities. Over the years, it bore much fruit: mayors, community leaders, secretaries of education, and many other individuals who are now actively contributing to the development of their communities.
FUNDAEC gave me something deeply meaningful: the opportunity to become a rural
educator. The pedagogy I now apply in the various settings where I have
worked—universities, schools—I owe to that training. I am currently a faculty member in the
Psychology program in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Universidad Católica de Oriente and lead a project called “Programa Pedagogos.” This program aims to support students during their first year of university, facilitating their adaptation and analyzing the factors that affect their ability to stay in higher education. This innovation stems from my experience in rural communities, where, through SAT, I came to understand that while all students can achieve their learning goals, not all possess the same abilities or skills, leading to different learning paces that must be taken into account. What sets FUNDAEC apart is one of its most fundamental principles: the development of the whole person. It’s not just about training professionals—though that naturally follows—but about helping individuals grow in such a way that they discover their inner strength, leadership potential, and desire to serve their communities. While we often speak of service to rural communities, I would say that in urban settings as well, FUNDAEC inspires us to accomplish great things and truly fosters education for development.
Today, as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of FUNDAEC—a foundation I deeply love and that touches my heart—I sincerely hope it will continue to serve communities and train the leaders of the future. These new generations are different, and we must prepare ourselves for them while also recognizing how much we need them. We need new mayors with a human vision, people with leadership in all kinds of institutions who can help improve the development processes of our communities. FUNDAEC still has much to offer these new generations—young people who believe in nature, who believe in the need to care for the environment, and who can move forward in that direction guided by the principles that FUNDAEC promotes.
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