Since 2011 Sifais has provided free socio-educational services to people of all ages in La Carpio, with the premise that to learn you just need compromise and the desire to learn, hoping to provide opportunities for the people of the community to try things that otherwise they couldn’t have been able to have.
Thanks to the help of hundreds of individual people and companies that have helped the Sifais foundation, it grew from having a couple of volunteers teaching with a single violin and twenty plastic flutes to what it is today.
More than ten years later, with the help of many people Sifais now has a building that runs on renewable energy, an internationally recognized orchestra, award winning athletes among many other examples of remarkable achievements that have proven the rest of the country that despite the gruesome depictions of their community talent can still succeed when it’s given the opportunity.
We don’t have the answer to solve poverty in our hands, but we can provide better opportunities and integration to help them overcome their circumstances, or at least, cope with them with dignity.
Learn more about our constructive rebellion
Programs and Initiatives runned by volunteers
Artistic
Programs
ballet, hip hop, folcloric dances, flamenco
Music Programs and Orchestra
Introduction to music, violin, viola, cello, guitar, drums, piano, flute, saxophone, clarinet
Orchestra, Camerata, quartets, Rock band, percussion band, choir, jazz band
Groups
Sports
programs
Judo, Karate, Boxing
Education Programs
It is a free private kindergarten that teaches children with the Montessori method that’s based on the development of knowledge and skills, in a playful, practical and experimental way, it is aimed at children between 3 and 6 years of age.
This center began operations in May 2013 with the conviction of providing opportunities for improvement through education. It provides its students with tools that allow them not only to develop and function better in school, as has already been seen with their graduated students, but also to help them to function more easily in the social and family environment, since they are taught dialogue and courtesy as core values.
Currently the Montessori is cared for by its director, Magdalena López, certified with this learning method, and three more collaborators from the La Carpio community, who regularly help, both in the educational, and in the preparation of food for the little ones.
The current operating cost for this project is $ 2,000 per month, an amount that includes food for 40 children in three times from Monday to Friday, plus the payment for the teachers.
This formal education program is developed in alliance with the Ministry of Public Education (MEP) of Costa Rica, which allows people over the age of 15 to complete their primary and secondary school studies. This program has allowed more than 100 people from the La Carpio community to graduate from school that due to time or money were not able to complete their studies before.
Currently the school is open from Monday to Thursday from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm and the registration period is announced in advance so that the community is aware of the program registration days. It is also relevant to note that within the framework of the alliance with the Ministry of Public Education, the services provided are free, since it is the SIFAIS foundation that covers the expenses in materials for the students and it is the MEP that contributes with the teachers, they only need to bring the desire to learn.
PRODUCTIVE
SOCIAL ENTERPRISES
EntreCosturas is the first productive social enterprise of SIFAIS. Led by artisans from the La Carpio community who seek to get the best out of this area of the country to better its socially and economically integration. It arises as an action of promotion and inclusion by Sifais to promote productive economic entrepreneurship.
It is a specialized network in cutting, printing and manufacturing all types of garments made with industrial waste material or materials that have a differentiating ecological component. Cases produced with recycled vinyl, wallets made with plastic bags or textile waste, reusable sanitary napkins, reusable masks are some examples of the products made by the EntreCosturas artisans.
SIFAIS LAB seeks to generate employability, training and innovation for the people of the La Carpio community and at the same time a way to generate funds for the maintenance of the Cuevadeluz building, SIFAIS’ headquarters.
The educational extension of the SIFAIS LAB, takes place in the Makers Academy of innovation and productivity, that allows its participants to learn and develop work skills during a period of one year in workshops. When the manufactured goods are placed in the market the profits allow the students to get a complementary source of income and funds for the foundation.
The SIFAISSori productive academy was born in 2020 during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has a triple purpose, to promote training and generation of complementary income for women with low schooling, help the formation of children throughout the country through interaction with wooden toys, and be a source of income for the self-sustainability of the Montessori Sifais Program.
The initiative was born thanks to the alliance between SIFAIS and EPA Hardware Stores, a regional chain. With it, almost 7 thousand toys were produced from the Sifais LAB to give to children from communities affected by Covid-19.
The Pan de Luz Academy aims to generate employability and training for the inhabitants of the La Carpio community, especially the migrant population of the area.
The Pan de Luz Academy strives to become a bakery training center in addition to offering its space so that small merchants in the area can use their implements to make products, this under a framework of cooperation with the foundation.
Is an entrepreneurship project that tries to create social inclusion through the work of designing and assembling of furniture. With a bit of math and a drill the participants are able to achieve great results.
Is an entrepreneurship project where the young people of the community of La Carpio explore their creativity and work their artistic skills on fabric and resins.
This project was born through the initiative of two young women of La Carpio, who decided to use plastic residues and transform them into something different, making them into art and souvenirs for Sifais.
"ACTIM Zones" is an initiative conceived by ULTRAPARK Development Group in alliance with the Sifais Foundation with the goal of promoting skills with high added value in socially vulnerable populations, which at the same time, will allow to generate a greater supply of Costa Rican talent for companies.
The program aims to facilitate a quick and suitable training, specially for young people living in vulnerable areas so that they can access positions with better remuneration in companies that are part of the 4th industrial revolution.
