What is Pa’lante Caribe?

In 2019, W Radio, the Universidad de los Andes, the Universidad del Norte, the Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar, and the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (Montería campus) joined together to strengthen the Colombian Caribbean region’s access to higher education by creating the Pa’lante Caribe program.

In a country like Colombia, where there is much inequality and a lack of opportunities, Pa’lante Caribe believes that talent can be found everywhere in the country but opportunities cannot. Only one in ten young people between 17 and 21 from this region enrolls on an accredited undergraduate program. The national average is two in ten.

This program is committed to inclusion and seeks to generate development in the Caribbean region, contribute to social change in Colombia, and strengthen a region in which one in three people live in extreme poverty.

Pa’lante Caribe’s goal is to connect 1,000,000 donor friends to the program who will contribute to providing young people from the Caribbean region who have demonstrated academic excellence but lack the economic funds to study an undergraduate degree with access to high quality higher education. 

The model unites funds collected from the donations and contributions from each one of the four partner universities to finance 98% of the undergraduate program for young people between 16 and 21. The beneficiaries should be Colombian nationals, come from the Caribbean region, live in socioeconomic stratus one, two or three, have studied in either a private or public school, and have presented the Saber 11 tests.

For the purposes of this alliance, the Caribbean region includes the following departments: Atlántico, Bolívar, Cesar, Córdoba, La Guajira, Magdalena, San Andrés and Providencia, and Sucre as well as some municipalities in Urabá (Turbo, Necoclí, San Juan de Urabá, Arboletes, Unguía, and Acandí).

What motivates us

We believe that philanthropy is a way of fulfilling dreams. Understanding higher education as a tool for social mobility, which is a country’s main development driver, this program has been a joint effort to obtain donations for undergraduate scholarship programs in the partner universities.

The model of the program is fundamentally a solidarity chain. Today, thanks to the donors, students have access to much better-quality higher education. The beneficiaries of the Pa’lante Caribe program, when they have graduated and are receiving an income, will then help others have the same opportunity that they had. We believe that a foundation of trust will lead to the proliferation of solidarity.

Pa’lante Caribe is a program based on inclusion, academic cooperation, and student mobility that additionally inspires the creation of academic networks, collaborative research, and, with this, the desire to have an impact on the country through searching for a fairer society.

How to make your donation to Pa’lante Caribe?

You can help to reduce inequality through education by making a donation to Pa’Lante Caribe via the website www.palantecaribe.com as well as through our partner companies Colpatria and Olímpica.

• Via the webpage www.palantecaribe.com you can make a contribution using PSE (online payment), your credit card, or using the barcode from a cash deposit. Donations can be from COP 10,000 to COP 38 million.
• In more that 370 Olímpica supermarkets nationwide, you can make a donation from COP 100 to COP 9,990,000.
• In 254 Colpatria cash machines throughout the whole country, you can donate from COP 500 to COP 10,000.
• In 181 Colpatria offices throughout the country, any sum can be donated from COP 1,000.

For donations from the United States of America, you can make a contribution via the University of the Andes Foundation webpage and also receive tax benefits.