This municipality of Cundinamarca is the first one that wants to turn all its population IGNORE INTO English speakers, and it is a question of identity

Leer en español: Funza: el municipio de Colombia que le apuesta al bilingüismo

When the native language is Spanish, why does a municipality insist that its entire population can communicate in English? Would not this go against the identity construction of a town? For the mayor of Funza, the answer is quite the opposite: to be Funzanian is to be bilingual. Why?

It is no secret to anyone that English is the language of globalization. By 2016, one billion people spoke English as their second language, according to the World Economic Forum. It is the language that most people choose to learn and it has become an essential tool to survive in the labor market of a globalized world. Funza has decided to take the teaching of English to a new level: the goal is for the entire population to speak this language.

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For this reason, the Funza City Hall created the Funza Bilingüe (Bilingual Funza) program, to encourage its inhabitants to learn English and use it in their day to day. According to the official blog of the Mayor of Funza, "it is an integral project with which we want to reach every funzan so that we are all immersed in this great initiative that seeks the learning of a second language".

To carry out this project, different initiatives have been developed. One of the most striking was the free bilingual kindergarten, founded by the PepsiCo foundation in September 2013, as reported by Las 2 Orillas. "Funza carried out the inauguration of the Child Development Center of the Popular District in which more than ninety children between 0 and 5 years will receive free bilingual education," said the Colombian online journal. Thus, we see that the project to promote bilingualism comes from the earliest stage of education.

Likewise, it extends to all school grades: another of the projects that have been developed within the framework of Funza Bilingüe was the "Great bilingual tour". It was a tour of the most significant places of the municipality in English on May 5, 2018. According to the official page of the municipal mayor's office, the tour took place "with the students of the Andean Higher School as part of the strategy that the Secretariat of Sustainable Economic Development and the Secretary of Education who intend in this way to promote ecological tourism in the municipality".

Funza is bilingual thanks to the management of the municipal mayor, Manuel Antonio Montagu Briceño

Montagu Briceño was the winner in the 2015 municipal elections with a significant majority: 22,340 votes, corresponding to 59.67%. Montagu was followed by Oscar Javier Uribe Quintero who obtained 6,665 (17.8%) and then by Diego Fernando Mora Herrera, with 6,072 votes (16.21%), according to data from the National Registry reported by Colombia.com.

In his government plan, the mayor states: "We will work to reduce the social gap and improve the quality of life of all inhabitants from early childhood to old age with an emphasis on generating employment sources so that Funzanos have access to decent housing, to quality education with higher grades, to timely, humane and without intermediation attention in health, so as not to discriminate against young people and women, so that all municipal programs are inclusive".

One of the vehicles to close this social gap is education and particularly the initiative of Funza Bilingüe: "I will strengthen the inclusion of the second language for students from early childhood to higher education and I will take it to homes, and public sectors such as integral measure of achievement, initiating the strategy for the declaration of FUNZA AS A BILINGUAL MUNICIPALITY".

The government of Montagu Briceño has been completely oriented towards progress and this initiative is proof of that. Through initiatives such as bilingual public kindergarten or the ecotourism tour in English, Funza is closer to becoming the first municipality to speak English and Spanish perfectly from Colombia.

What are the objectives of this initiative?

The search for development is the main motivation of the municipal mayor's office to promote this initiative. Being the first bilingual municipality in Colombia will probably bring tourism, especially if it is aimed at ecotourism, as with the "Great bilingual tour" last May. In addition, being bilingual will attract media attention, as well as the presence of foreign professionals interested in working on this initiative.

It is also an identity issue. "We are Funzanos when we believe in progress, when we see a touristic, bilingual city", says the #YoSoyFunzano campaign. Funza does not leave Spanish behind, but sees English as the future.

LatinAmerican Post | Laura Rocha Rueda

Translated from "Funza: el municipio de Colombia que le apuesta al bilingüismo"