Become a Coliazul Supporting Friend.

In a valley in southern Costa Rica, a group of parents and neighbours built a learning space for their own children. Coliazul began in August 2023. The children's program opened in January 2024 and has run five days a week ever since, in Spanish and English, on a curriculum inspired by Waldorf education.

We pay for it ourselves. Our families contribute what they can, and that covers the heart of it. Your gift covers what they cannot stretch to, and lets us give the children more than the essentials.

Tree Planting Action with Community Carbon Trees

What a week at Coliazul looks like

Four days a week the children, ages 7 to 12, are with their main teacher, who holds the group and its rhythm. Waldorf education asks that head, heart and hands grow together, and the days are built that way: mathematics, language studies alongside music, drawing, handwork, local culture and time outdoors. Subjects are met through story, art and crafts. This rhythm is what steadies everything else.

Casa Coliazul classroom

Casa Coliazul Classroom

From that foundation, community teachers bring their gifts to this heart of our community:

Ecology with our community expert ecologist, the children take part in restoring the Barú watershed itself.
Gardening and permaculture with a permaculture specialist, in real soil.
Movement and acroyoga, balance, trust, and the confidence in their bodies and peers
Theatre and expression, finding a voice and courage through play
Mentorship, a neighbour teaching a child what they know, one to one: sewing, painting, drawing, singing, mechanics
Cross-cultural exchange, a few times a year we're invited to join the local public school's festivities

Coliazul movement class at Holos Community Dome

Coliazul Movement Class at Holos Community Dome

What we have already done

Kept the program running, and growing, since January 2024. The thing we are proudest of: children arriving five days a week, term after term, year after year.
Woven together a circle of community teachers, neighbours who bring ecology, permaculture, movement, theatre and one-to-one mentorship, and who have made this a heart for the village.
Held seasonal gatherings that bring life and cultural exchange to the valley: music, live performances by the children, food, and the example of a community building together.
Planted trees with our neighbours, we contributed with Tree Jenny of Community Carbon Trees, restoring water sources and biodiversity, and learning to heal the land by working it. (read more)
Opened Casa Coliazul, the community space in San Salvador de Barú that became the home of the children's program. (read more)
Opened the Coliazul Library, built entirely from donated books. (browse it)
Brought theatre to the valley, Momo and the Time Thieves, a bilingual open-air production created with the artists of Diamante Valley, played to full audiences over five performances. (read more)

Coliazul Cultures Festival

Coliazul Cultures Festival

Why we are asking now

Our families pay for the teaching. What they cannot stretch to is everything around it: the room we rent, the specialists who come to teach, the materials, the journeys out of the valley, the artists who make our festivals feel like festivals.

And until today, the only way to support Coliazul was to come to a party. Every donation we have ever received arrived at an event, from someone standing in the room.

This page is the first way to help from wherever you are.

What your gift does

Keeps the room, Casa Coliazul, where the program lives
Brings specialists consistently
Takes the children out into Costa Rica, field trips to community projects, campign expedition, museums, national parks, the country beyond the valley they know
Stocks the art table and the garden
Brings artists and musicians to our community events
Makes room for more children, including a group for the little ones still waiting

Field Trip Boruca Sphere Guardians

Field Trip Boruka Sphere Guardians

Field trip to Nauyaca Waterfall

Field Trip Nauyaca Waterfall

How this connects to the Cultural Center

The Coliazul Cultural Center is moving forward on a parallel track. Together with the Diamante Bridge Collective, we have land agreements in place, site preparations and architectural blueprints done, and we are collectively raising the funds for the coming build phases. It is our contribution to the wider community and to the bigger vision of Coliazul.

This page does not fund that construction, and yet it matters to it more than it might sound.

The children's program sits at the centre of everything. It is what holds the team together, what keeps the rhythm, and what drives our collective effort toward the Cultural Center. Sustaining the program sustains the people who carry that larger vision, and gives the Center something already alive to be built around.

More about the Cultural Center.

More than one way to belong

Give · Come to an event · Teach a skill · Send books or supplies · Tell a friend

Most of our support arrives because someone explained us to someone else.

A moment from the Coliazul classroom

Coliazul is an Association of parents and community stewards, aligned in values, who organized to carry this Vision. It nurtures all ages and cultivates a way of living and learning as part of nature, a model to transform our village, and to pass on to the generations that follow.

Help us give them more than the essentials.

Questions, or want to talk first? coliazul@protonmail.com · coliazul.org

Moments from Coliazul

Photos from the Coliazul children's program

Coliazul Supporting Friends: Raise Our Ceiling

A children's learning space in Diamante Valley, Costa Rica, built and funded by its own families. Help us reach further.