In Colombia, talking about educational quality involves much more than academic results. In contexts marked by inequality, violence, displacement, and poverty, emotional education becomes an indispensable condition for learning to take place. Therefore, the decision to incorporate emotional education as a compulsory subject in the country represents a historic opportunity to strengthen schools as spaces for care, well-being, and social transformation.

At the Pies Descalzos Foundation, we welcome this commitment and see it as a necessary step in responding to the realities faced by thousands of children and young people in public education.

Why is emotional education key in public schools?

Emotional education allows students to recognize, understand, and manage their emotions, develop empathy, strengthen their self-esteem, and learn to interact healthily with others. These skills not only impact individual well-being but are also directly related to school retention, coexistence, and learning processes.

In complex community contexts—such as those where the Barefoot Foundation works—many students arrive at school carrying experiences of grief, violence, insecurity, or abandonment. Ignoring this emotional reality is closing the door to learning. Validating emotions does not distract from learning: it makes it possible.

Several studies have shown that social-emotional learning programs improve the school climate, reduce dropout rates, and strengthen academic performance, especially in vulnerable populations.

Experience from the field: learning is also feeling

The Barefoot Foundation's stance on emotional education is not based on a trend, but rather on direct experience in the field. Over more than two decades of work in public education, we have seen that there can be no meaningful learning without emotional well-being.

That is why we always incorporate a psychosocial support approach into the projects we develop, understood as a continuous process that involves not only students, but also teachers and families.

Programs such as Conectando Emociones(Connecting Emotions), Centro Aprende (Learn Center), and Familia Aprende (Learn Family) have helped strengthen social-emotional skills, improve school coexistence, and create safe spaces for dialogue, listening, and emotional support inside and outside the classroom.

The family as the primary source of emotional education

At the Pies Descalzos Foundation, we understand that schools cannot take on the challenge of emotional education alone. The family is the first place where children learn—or fail to learn—assertive communication, emotion management, and conflict resolution.

That is why our support processes include mothers, fathers, and caregivers, providing them with tools to strengthen bonds, promote dialogue, and more consciously accompany the emotional development of children and young people.

When schools and families work together, emotional education ceases to be an isolated subject and becomes an everyday practice.

Emotional education and teacher training

Another fundamental pillar is teacher training. You cannot teach what you have not first worked on yourself. That is why the Foundation's programs include training and support for teachers, focusing on:

• Managing emotions in the classroom
• Assertive communication strategies
• Prevention of emotional exhaustion
• Building safe school environments

Strengthening teachers' emotional well-being is key to improving educational quality and ensuring sustainable teaching processes.

Emotional education: a commitment to permanence and equity

Incorporating emotional education as a compulsory subject is also a strategy for reducing educational gaps. Students who have the tools to manage their emotions are more likely to remain in the education system, build life projects, and interact positively with their environment.

At the Pies Descalzos Foundation, we believe that this decision must be implemented with a territorial approach, adequate resources, and support for educational communities. It is not just a matter of including content in the curriculum, but of transforming the way we understand education.

A necessary step toward a more humane education

Emotional education does not replace academic learning: it enhances it. In a country like Colombia, where structural inequalities continue to shape the lives of millions of students, investing in emotional well-being means investing in a more equitable, relevant, and humane education.

At the Pies Descalzos Foundation, we will continue working to ensure that school is a place where children and young people not only learn maths and language, but also learn to know themselves, express themselves, take care of themselves, and live together.

Because educating also means accompanying, listening, and healing.