Let’s look at the traces of our neighborhood! Pioneer teens toward Yomasa’s historic reconstruction (1974-2018)

Abstract

This project aims to reconstruct the history of Yomasa neighborhood, located in the fifth locality (Usme) of the Bogota city, from the school environment. The authors are adolescents aged 14, 15 and 16, respectively. They are currently studying at the Federico García Lorca School, a public education institution where they carry out their research within the framework of the Social Sciences subject.

The intention is not to make a professional or highly conceptual historiography with this project, due to the school nature of the same, but to consolidate a product that responds to their interests as inhabitants of sector. This has led them to carry out interviews with some of their neighbors, among whom are founders and old inhabitants of the neighborhood. Thus, the oral sources have been subjected to a process of contrast with photographs, models, maps, mental maps, press, among other materials that serve for academic reflection of the proposal.

The researchers, despite their youth, express in this work the intention to make known the history of their neighborhood at national and international level, because it is something that to date no academic spectrum has deepened and shed light on problems such as obtaining public services in popular areas of city, the constitution of the communal action board, settlement of housing estates and community activities through committees to meet educational, medical, housing and transport needs. Consequently, the school research project enables students to assimilate their historical roles in dialogue with urban phenomena originating during 70’s and 80’s years, which precede their present space-time location in Bogotá, Colombia and the world.