Introduction

“Cultural exchange is a bridge to enhance the mutual understanding and friendship between the

people of different nations.”

- Hu Jintao former Chinese president

A cultural exchange between two countries (Colombia & Canada) that are recognize for

being pluri-cultural nations is a trip around the diversity. This process of cultural exchange

allows participating children to move that heavy curtain of the unknown and immerse

themselves in the spectacle of creation. Language barriers become a possibility of integration

and geographical distance becomes a process of self-known where the imagination link two

realities into one story making process that becomes the fiction as a creation tool.

Along the Building Bridges: Cuentos y Puentos project, both the Canadian and Colombian

participating children explore themselves into writing process that work around and by the

creativity and freedom of the imagination. Despite there is a language diversity, it cross into

a secondary level due to the primary importance of stories’ making. The child I worked with

was in front of the starting line with the desire of knowing all the track he was going through.

He decided to adventure himself around a marvelous journey encircle the infinite possibilities

that the creation encloses.

In this research paper, I invite you to walk inside the project mentioned before. I also

invite you to learn about the importance of articulating the social justice component and the

transformative sense of the language when speaking about schooling. Throughout the

Building Bridges project it is intended enhance the child participant to make use of the

language as a possibility of communicate and be heard. The project’s paramount pretend that
the participating children understand that there is more to what they link. They are other

cultures waiting to be rediscover and also to be mentioned. During this document, I expect

that the reader can recognize how the words acts a possibility of create and recreate the place

we live in as well as recognize how the other stories are important to understand the diversity

that exists.

Through this paper there are different sections that as a whole represents the findings and

the development of this community intervention project. To begin with, there is the

contextualization where the aforementioned project is explained and the social and

pedagogical purpose it has is stablished. Then, the pedagogical proposal takes its place where

the schedule for the different activities is organized inside a four-labels table. Therefore, you

will find the data analysis section where the most remarkable reflections resulting from the

whole process are announced. There, I pretend to presented possible topics for further

investigations that will retake the cultural exchange with Colombian children along its

schooling process. At the end, I propose a reflection in regards to the whole process that was

developed around the Building Bridges: Cuentos y Puentes.