As we talked about in last year’s assembly’s magazine, we have a clear conscience for deploying our resources and placing all of Comfama’s human and spiritual energy in service of caring for life, companies, employment, mental health, the cultural industry, education, and families in Antioquia. During the pandemic’s darkest months we were committed to maintaining our essence without fear, to delving into our purpose and strategy in times when others used the handbrake.
Around December 2020, we thought -wishingly, perhaps- that 2021 would be the year of the post-pandemic. But we were far from understanding the virus’ dynamics, and its social and political consequences.We hadn’t yet recognized that we’re living in a new time, that challenges would multiply and that you can’t ever expect to return to the past, but rather look carefully at the horizon and live the present without losing your identity.
So when we started planning for 2021, we imagined a “more normal” year. We felt the power of Antioquia’s industries creating formal jobs at full speed, we looked forward to the arrival of vaccines and anticipated full social, cultural and economic reopenings. However, we live in times of unpredictability, and that ends up being a great learning opportunity.
Thus, 2021 was a great lesson in adaptability, a teacher of creativity, a gym for the spirit and a master’s degree in hope.
In January our hopes of going back to normal took a hit. New quarantine restrictions were announced, and they ended up taking almost 40 days of the year. Vaccines took longer to arrive than scheduled and, to make matters worse, April marked the beginning of marches and protests in many of our cities. Our path towards hope and optimism took an unexpected turn: by May our country was in dismay, anguished and polarized.
However, in Comfama we decided to exercise hope, which comes from the Latin word ‘sperare’ that means ‘to wait’. We waited in an active, purposeful and positive way, like the farmer that sows, cares for, and understands how the natural processes develop.
Not knowing yet if it would be sustainable or not, we started opening our Covid vaccination centers. We were convinced that the vaccine -in the public plan as well as in the private initiative headlined by the ANDI- would be essential for saving lives and regaining the country’s reactivation.
We took part in many peace building programs in order to bridge the gap between institutions and protestors: civic campaigns, Possibilistic assemblies, talks between the First line and business leaders, We have to talk Colombia, and more.
We kept granting unemployment subsidies, accompanying people and families that were looking for an employment path. We worked to ensure that new job openings were more inclusive; we promoted the Alliance for the employment of youth and women and other public-private partnerships so that economic growth would be transfered, through employment, to citizens. We purchased 100% of the Panamerican Clinic’s stocks in Uraba, because we consider it essential to the health of Antioquia’s most promising region. We reinforced our mental health attention programs and intensified our investments in regions, culture and education.
In conclusion, when faced by the fear and uncertainty caused by the restrictions, closures and political agitation, we decided to fast track our most important initiatives, with the belief that hope and our future are built through action.
In April, companies in Antioquia gave us great news: we had recovered employment rates to where they were in February of 2020, prior to the pandemic. Antioquia achieved 1.6 million formal jobs once again, and the rising tendency led us to believe that our hopes were backed not just by our moral sense, but also by real progress.
The National Government eventually acquired the much needed vaccines, and Comfama played a part in the process that restored hope and cared for the health of millions of people in Antioquia. Up until December, we were responsible for giving 17% of the vaccines in the region, at our 32 vaccination centers created exclusively to contribute to this national effort. In 2022 we’ll reach 2 million doses!
We expedited our infrastructure projects. Our office in Puerto Berrío opened its doors, and the one in Santa Fe de Antioquia soon followed. We got ready to open new schools (now called Cosmo Schools) so that in January of 2022 we’ll go from 4 to 10 schools. We opened four new health centers along with Sura EPS to reach more territories with our care and rapid attention model in basic health. We started the transformation of the Comfama Cloister in downtown Medellín, and we’re still sowing dozens of projects that our affiliates and close communities will see blossoming in the next few months.
Late in the year we launched two of our most iconic programs that help set up paths for the future. In October we announced the Conscious menstruation program and subsidy, the third of its kind in the world and the first in Colombia, that not only benefits thousands, but also sparks a national conversation about the dignity of women, about menstrual poverty and how we must face it as a society. Alongside Cesde, we launched our Business school, created to provide companies and employees with technical and leadership education fit to their needs.
The bigger the trust placed on us by families and companies, the bigger our challenge. In September 2021 we reached almost fifty thousand working affiliates more than we had before the pandemic. By October our parks had as many visitors as they did on any weekend in 2019.
To sum it up, 2021 was a challenging but satisfying year for us. We no longer aspire to normality, but rather change in the right direction. We stay on our journey as caregivers with no other ambition than doing the right thing, humbly accepting opportunities for improving and being nurtured by the love of the people of Antioquia and the commitment of an ever-growing community of idealists, employees, partners and suppliers.