My name is Ossa López. I'm 15 years old and live in Bello Antioquia, Colombia. My life has been different from others, because I have not being always lived in the same place. First I lived with my grandmother in Yolombó and I learned many things, one of those, "Nothing is worth doing overnight", and I'm fully convinced that this is how it should be. Many times in life we lose opportunities because of things that are senseless not only now but in the future and we lose so many good experiences, but then coming from another planet, I landed on Earth and I see things that are not easy so I try to change it.
One day my mother Danelly López Herrera came home with news about a Youth Group in the Cooperative where my little brother, Luis Miguel, was a member. I was interested in the proposal, but I wanted to be a singer and my chorus classes were at the same time, so I didn’t go to it. After time, I left the Chorus for personal reasons and my mother insisted that I join the Youth Group, so I did. I was just a little nervous, because I’m social, but I was concerned about to meeting with many other youths who would not make me feel good, but it wasn’t like that at all. First I only knew one girl, and I started to participate without knowing that I’d find such valuable friends. There was a girl dressed in black with a little hair bow, and she was very kind. In the group were two great guys who speak incredibly and very knowledgeable. They are funny, kind, intelligent and now they are my friends. Also there were more boys, too many I would say, one dances great, another eats as much as I do, others have colic, and other youths have incredible abilities - they are all like my family.
This cooperative, to which one day I started frightened, now is like my second home. We have met more people and places, we have gone on walks, and we participate on social work among other activities.
There was a time when we did activities with the scouts and not only did we know their fascinating history but also I realized that: I definitely have no physical condition and the worst thing is that I am not the only one! In the regular meetings, which are held every 15 days, we made banners expressing the things which we identified with and that allowed me to comprehend that we are very different inside; we also do introduction activities and games of trust, attention, to know us more and things like that.
In 2016 we celebrated the Child Day in a municipal institution and we helped them. We learned about logistic sand also learned how complicated is to coordinate with children. However, it was a great experience, it’s so funny to be with my friends doing things that make us laugh, and don’t forget the pictures, those are sacred.
Now, we are in a basic cooperative course. I can say that I’ve learned more things than taught at school and perhaps, those things have traumatized me a little! The teacher explained us the colors of the original flag of cooperatives, created by the French pioneer Charles Fourier. I discovered that color does not really exist. Color is a sum of wave frequencies that the eye captures and then the brain interprets and decodes. This is only applicable for natural sunlight and not for artificial light and synthetic pigments. I definitely do not assimilate it, but as my teacher Carlos Vega said, who taught the course, "doubt everything that others tell you, doubt even what I tell you, investigate and discover the reality for yourself." This is a wonderful man; he has two dogs that leave him lame whenever he goes to the group. We like to listen to him, he teaches us in a way that made us think for ourselves and we get headaches trying to define concepts, until together we find good answers. He tell us that we as youth, we see the reality of our country and the rest of the world, so we realized that cooperatives are good.
