Well-being is at the heart of Colombia’s COMPENSAR - Family Allowances Fund (COMPENSAR - Caja de Compensación Familiar). This has been a process of evolution, complemented by Amartya Sen’s theory that “you can understand a person’s well-being by analysing the quality of their life, which can be considered as a set of interrelated “functionings”, consisting of states and actions”.

The body’s poor assimilation of food leads to a pathological state known as malnutrition, which can take varying degrees of severity and have different clinical manifestations. It is considered a disease with high morbidity and mortality rates.

As part of the process of becoming a flexible and digital organization, COLSUBSIDIO - Colombian Family Allowances Fund (COLSUBSIDIO - Caja Colombiana de Subsidio Familiar) implemented the digitalization of the social housing acquisition process, thereby improving the experience of beneficiaries and optimizing the time spent on the various stages. This is a strategy that contributes to reducing the carbon footprint by avoiding travel and using less paper.

Health is a fundamental right in Colombia. However, there are certain segments of the population that because they live in geographically remote regions, have difficulties accessing health services in areas such as prevention, treatment and sourcing quality medicines. In general, the country’s health and medicine-dispensation services are located in the municipal capitals, which can be hard for rural dwellers to reach.

For more than 18 years, the COLSUBSIDIO - Colombian Family Allowances Fund (COLSUBSIDIO - Caja Colombiana de Subsidio Familiar) has been running educational and cultural programmes to support the comprehensive development of children and young people in rural and urban areas, helping to close social gaps.

The COLSUBSIDIO - Colombian Family Allowances Fund (COLSUBSIDIO - Caja Colombiana de Subsidio Familiar) is continuing its transformation to become a more streamlined and digital organization. It is developing initiatives to successfully implement new ways of working that are more operationally efficient, as well as to consolidate and scale the process automation plan, helping the organization adapt to the demands of the market and the needs of users.

In Colombia, 47.9 per cent of workers are employed informally and almost half of them earn less than the minimum wage, which is an obstacle to them making social security contributions. The national government has focussed on the Orange Economy, in which workers in the creative industries generate income based on intellectual property. Incomes, however, are predominantly low and employment is occasional, making this a vulnerable sector.

Inspired by its compromise with social transformation, Compensar designed and implemented on its own initiative a pioneering model of participation in social housing (Intervención en Vivienda de Interés Social (VIS)), aimed at building communities beyond housing delivery.

By means of a coaching process, the new families of VIS projects led by Compensar develop social and civic skills that stimulate the sense of community ownership. It also improves their quality of life, ensuring communal life, training leaders and creating opportunities for integral growth.

A model based on flexible, pyramidal modules proved its worth and enabled us to respond to the expectations of the participants and minimize drop-outs.

The achievements and results obtained met the expectations of our partner, i.e. the Supreme Council, which enhanced our credibility and their confidence in the intervention of COLSUBSIDIO and enabled us to extend the agreement so that beneficiaries could complete their technical training; this means the continuation of the project in the long term and increases the chances of employment and integration in the world of work.