For many years, Fundación Origen has developed a holistic education model that allows creating virtuous circles of more equitable development. We started in 1991 with the Agroecological School of Pirque, which now accepts over 400 students who graduate as agricultural technicians year after year. In our free school, we develop a holistic education model that incorporates all dimensions of the human being, not only the cognitive one. Twenty two generations have graduated already, thousands of young men and women who rely on tools to lead a productive life and be social transformers.

This model has been recognized and rewarded in Chile and abroad by institutions such as the Ashoka, Avina and Schwab Foundations. In 2014, it was rewarded by Ashoka as the first Chilean transforming school and the second in Latin America.

Our students consider themselves happy persons. And a happy child learns, develops his autonomy, cares for himself and the environment and commits himself with the happiness of others. This is achieved by taking care of every detail and by promoting a culture of peace, creativity and sustainability in all areas. We have no dropping out, or violence, or bullying!

Currently, the Foundation has widen its impact with new projects: the Virginia Subercaseaux School, the Institute for Peace and Sustainable Education –whose teacher training model reaches more than 100,000 children all over the country- and the School of Trades, which seeks to increase our students’ labor opportunities.

Although we have been creating educational and social transforming programs for 25 years, we want to go on dreaming and innovating with new sustainable projects and models to share with the rest. They are all part of the educational program followed by our students. Together with the theoretical education, our young learn to cultivate the land, process their products and put them on the market. That is why we are growing and need to finance these new educational and productive spaces. They are all relevant and they are connected with the integral education of our future technicians and producers.

Educational and Productive Projects:

1. Origen Farmers Market >

2. Cooking school >

3. A truck >

4. Vegetable gardens and seed bank >

5. Learning outdoors >

6. Rio Claro Campus >

7. School Bus >

8. Construction of a Workshop Room >

Just imagine long and friendly tables among baskets filled with delicacies, where you can have coffee and cookies, eat empanadas and quiches coming out of the earth oven, with a nice wine from the region. Each week you can choose courses on organic vegetable gardens, ceramics, meditation or healthy cooking; field trips are available for children, where they can feed hens and young goats and learn how to make bread after grinding the wheat. Furthermore, if you have things that you don’t use at home any more, you can take them to the barter counter and pick what you like most or simply offer them.

All the above will take place very soon at Fundación Origen in Pirque. We are building the market at a privileged site, with a parking lot communicating to the main road. In a short time we will be selling the Foundation’s delicious products to everyone. Additionally, and thanks to an agreement with Chile’s Institute of Agricultural Development (INDAP), we will invite small local producers to share our space on a fair trade basis. All sale profits will go directly to the education of our students and the Foundation’s different social projects.

The market will also sell quality foods bought in bulk from small producers and packaged at Origen, in order to supply the community at better prices.

This is an invitation to enjoy a unique space such as the Farmers Market while helping at the same time. Is there anything better? 

Construction Budget for the Market:

− Materials: USD 13,880
− Labor: USD 3,731

Roof structure and second floor.
− Materials: USD 14,179
− Labor: USD 24,626

Completion of structural works, finishing and regularization: USD 25,671

Total: USD 82,087

Financed. 

Implementation Budget for the Market:

Furniture, secondary structures, appliances and accessories: USD 64,180

Total: USD 64,180

Pending financing.

Total Origen Farmers Market: USD 146,267 

With the purpose of offering an integral education, we have developed a curriculum that allows young to undertake and broaden their employability opportunities. Their academic training will include growing, processing, promotion of entrepreneurship, and trading of agricultural and artisanal products.

Thousands of people visit Pirque every year, Chileans and foreigners who seek to know life in this valley and its vineyards; therefore, there is an increasing demand for good cooks and people who know how to assist clients with the perfection of a trade. 

Moreover, Fundación Origen signed an agreement with INDAP to support small farmers who decide in favor of agroecological farming and women who process their produce and wish to trade them throughout our country.

Our Market and the School of Cuisine will be a demonstrative center of training and accompaniment to the improvement of their produce and processing. We wish to promote a better quality of life of peasant families and help replicate this experience in all the regions of Chile. 

Implementation Budget for the School of Cuisine:

Kitchen upgrading: ceramic tiles, electrical wiring and restroom facilities: USD 29,850

Furniture, implementation of a professional kitchen, proper appliances and accessories for conducting the productive and educational activity: USD 82,089

Total: USD 111,939 

The Inner Ecology workshop assigns two weekly hours for each course in reflection activities, self-awareness and self-care, meditation, management of emotions and experiences, tools for a healthy and sustainable coexistence inside and outside of the school. Our students are educated as peaceful persons who are able to prevent and resolve conflicts, and as reflective persons who are able to break away from family and social violence habits that exist in the whole society. Our youth and their teachers work on transformation processes that enable them a full and peaceful life, thereby contributing to a society that is friendlier, more honest, altruistic and respectful of others. In order to carry out these activities, we need a large, bright and cozy room, which can create an atmosphere disposed towards the trust and openness that these workshops require.

Budget construction multitaller room:

Infrastructure: thick works, terminations and installations USD 52, 238
TOTAL CONSTRUCTION: USD 52, 238