Day of Physical Activity - Úmbita
By Mateo Rodriguez
This was our day of physical activity for our high school in Úmbita, Boyacá. In Colombia, "Día del Desafío" (Challenge Day) is a national event which promotes physical activity. It's an initiative of the WHO aimed at encouraging people to engage in physical activity and healthy lifestyles. It's celebrated through various activities, both virtual and in-person, to engage all population groups.
Our school celebrates it yearly. The idea is to promote the health benefits of physical activity and have the students walk to some of the local rural sedes, or campuses, of the school. Our high school has about 300 students and is located in the center of my town. Altogether, all the schools in my town (including sedes) have about 470 students. We have a population of about 10,000 people in all of Úmbita.
We started with an assembly at 7:00 a.m. After that, we began our hike. Our first stop was the Jupal campus. It has one teacher and about 12 students from first to fifth grade. Jupal is about 3.6 kilometers from our main campus. We arrived there and the teacher and her students greeted us with oranges and small treats. Our school group arrived little by little and enjoyed a break of about 20 minutes before we continued to the next campus, Loma Gorda.
Loma Gorda was about another 3 kilometers away from Jupal. This campus also has one teacher and about 12 elementary students. At this point we had walked about 6.6 kilometers. The students arrived and began playing basketball, soccer, and spending time with their friends. All the teachers and students rested, ate some bananas, and drank juice.
After some time in Loma Gorda, we made our way back to the high school. On the way back people were tired. The roads were unpaved and not many had stretched properly. Students got back to the school at around 12:40 p.m. We had walked a total of about 13.2 kilometers, or 8.2 miles. Lunch was offered and the students were dismissed for the day.
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