Shakira dies of love for a girl’s tender gratitude at the $4 million super school she opened in Barranquilla, a mega investment that critics say could build four more schools

Three days after her impressive performance at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards, Shakira headed to Barranquilla, her hometown in Colombia, to inaugurate a new $1 million school promoted by the Pies Descalzos Foundation.

The native of Barranquilla was present on Saturday, September 16, in the facilities of the Nuevo Bosque-Pies Descalzos educational center, an infrastructure of six thousand square meters that will offer study opportunities for about a thousand students, according to Forbes in one of its publications.

“Nothing better than returning to Barranquilla and this time for the inauguration of this new Pies Descalzos school that will serve 1050 students,” Shakira wrote on her Instagram account with a video of her presence in the facilities located in the Nuevo Bosque district, one of the largest and the poorest in Barranquilla.

In the video, you can see how the artist listens attentively to the words of thanks from one of the girls who will benefit from the event, a gesture that made the singer melt with love until she melted into an embrace with the little protagonist.

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“Thank you to our allies the FC Barcelona Foundation, the La Caixa LaSalle College Foundation, Mayor Pumare, the Barranquilla Mayor’s Office and the Ministry of Education for joining efforts and betting on the future of Colombian children,” added the Hips Don’t Lie translator.

How much Shakira invested in the new Pies Descalzos school in Barranquilla

According to a publication in the column Lol La Repúblice, Shakira’s foundation Pies Descalzos has intervened in the construction of nine schools since its establishment in 1997.

In particular, this school in Barranquilla, which consists of 22 regular classrooms, four preschool classrooms, a technology room, two laboratories, an art room, a library, sports fields, administrative areas, a kitchen, a dining room and bathrooms, had an investment of four million dollars, or about 16,000 million Colombian pesos, according to data published by Forbes.

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A few months before its opening, the same media referred to the work of the Pies Descalzos Foundation and the criticism of the millions of investments in the construction of the school, given that the figures could cover several buildings.

“When the Pies Descalzos Foundation, created by Shakira, introduced the concept of an unprecedented educational infrastructure in Colombia, there was a lot of criticism, claiming that with the resources of one school of this type, four more could be built,” writes Forbes in June, as the new mega-school it would not be exempted from the mentioned issues due to the million investment.

This project was launched in 2018, but the pandemic was the main factor affecting its delays, which could increase the cost of its completion.

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“I hope that there is not a single child in this country outside the school system. I hope that we can reduce the number of one million children who do not go to school to zero,” Shakira said at the press conference, where she offered to open the doors of a thousand children in need.

Currently, the Pies Descalzos Foundation is also working to build schools in the Colombian departments of Atlántico, Bolívar, Chocó, Norte de Santander and La Guajira. (AND)