The Geography of Opportunity

Where a Child Is Born Still Shapes How Far They Can Go in Colombia

We like to believe that opportunity is about talent, effort and ambition. We tell children to dream big. We tell young people that education can open doors. We tell communities that their future is in their hands. But what happens when the number of doors available to you depends, in part, on where you were born?

In Colombia, geography still shapes opportunity. In 2025, 22.4% of people living in populated centers and dispersed rural areas were experiencing multidimensional poverty, compared with 6.3% in urban county seats, according to Colombia’s National Administrative Department of Statistics, DANE.

The gap becomes even more striking when we look at education. Among young people between 17 and 21 years old, 44.7% of those living in urban areas had reached higher education in 2025. In populated centers and dispersed rural areas, the figure was 16%.

Talent is everywhere. Opportunity isn’t. This is not about saying that one place has more ambitious people than another. It is about recognizing that ambition needs conditions to grow. A child can have extraordinary talent and still face a very different path if their school lacks the infrastructure, resources, connectivity or opportunities that another child takes for granted.

And this is where I keep thinking about Macondo. Not the Macondo of Gabriel García Márquez, but a real community in Colombia where children are growing up, learning and imagining their futures. There is a school there that needs to be rebuilt.

At first glance, rebuilding a school might seem like a small intervention when compared with the scale of Colombia’s rural education gap. And it is. A new roof will not solve rural poverty. A renovated classroom will not fix decades of inequality. A school cannot, by itself, transform a country’s education system.

But I have learned that this does not make the intervention less important. It makes it more human. Because for the child who walks through that door tomorrow, the school is not a statistic. It is their classroom. Their meeting place. The place where they learn to read, ask questions, discover what they are good at and perhaps begin to imagine a life beyond the limits of the geography they were born into.

This is one of the places where I believe philanthropy has an important role to play. Philanthropy cannot — and should not be expected to — replace the responsibility of the State or solve structural inequality on its own.

But philanthropy can move with purpose. It can direct resources toward places that have historically received less. It can support communities while larger systems take the time they need to change. It can help create the conditions for opportunity to exist today, while we continue working toward the structural solutions that will make those opportunities more equal tomorrow.

“Geography should tell us where someone comes from — not how far they can go.”

— Mónica Gil Ryan

We don’t have to choose between fixing the system and helping someone today. We need to do both. That is why we are inviting people to help rebuild this school in Macondo. Not because one school will solve Colombia’s rural education challenges. But because one school can change what is possible for the children who learn there.

And perhaps that is where we should rethink the meaning of impact. Sometimes impact is measured in the size of a program, the number of people reached or the amount of capital invested. Sometimes it is much simpler. It is a child sitting in a safe classroom. A teacher who has the conditions to teach. A family that knows their community’s children have a place to learn. A young person who begins to believe that their future does not have to be limited by where they were born.

Geography should tell us where someone comes from — not how far they can go. While we continue working on the bigger question of how to make opportunity more equal across Colombia, we can also act where we are able to act today.

We can rebuild this school. We can invest in a place where opportunity begins. And we can remind these children that their future is worth investing in.

The “Macondo Goes to School, Too” campaign plans to rebuild the school’s infrastructure, install a solar energy system, provide safe drinking water, build sanitation facilities and equip classrooms. (Image courtesy ONE Social Investment and Tierra Grata)

If you want to be part of rebuilding the school in Macondo, you can contribute here: Caring for Colombia Foundation. Because sometimes changing the geography of opportunity begins with changing one place.

Follow the conversation:
LinkedIn: Mónica Gil Ryan
Instagram: @monicagilryan

Headline photo: Students in the rural school in Macondo that ONE Social Investment is raising funds to rebuild. (Photo courtesy ONE Social Investment)