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35 www.baristamagazine.com In order to maintain a strong network of young people interested in continuing the family business on their fincas, local representatives of Antioquia's government have partnered with the FNC and the Colombian national trade-education organization Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (SENA), and other interested international parties, to not only lift up the role of the barista within the country's coffee culture, but also offer exposure, guidance, and training in other in- dustry-related fields such as cupping, roasting, and retailing. One of the main projects that has come from this push for edu- cation is the development of Parques Educativos: community-run educational parks, of which 80 are planned within Antioquia—many with at least a temporary focus on coffee. The facilities, which are "earned" though applications submitted by the various towns and municipalities within the department, are designed for use by the local population in myriad ways—as gathering and meeting spaces, classrooms, forums, and experimental laboratories. In the park at Titiribí, a community of about 14,000 people in the southwestern region of the department, a pop-up "coffee shop" was staffed by two young, enthusiastic new SENA-trained coffee professionals: Este- ban Espinosa and Maria Paula Pincon, both genuinely passionate spokespeople for the park program. The pair led a small, curious group of coffee growers and enthusiasts through their first-ever coffee cupping, explaining the regional differences among coffees within Antioquia, from regions like Betulia, Andes, and Urrao (home of this year's Cup of Excellence winner). When I asked her what inspired her to get involved with coffee, Maria smiled and blushed, answering in English: "I wasn't looking for it, but it came. I got in love with coffee, and all the different places it comes. We have a lot of contact with the growers [at the Parques Educativos], so they can see that the coffees they taste here are special coffees." "Thanks to this program, we're pushing for the improvement of coffee by developing barista and coffee tasting programs," Esteban explains through a translator. "We're trying to improve the taste, to make a better flavor of the coffee, to mix the farmers and con- sumers, and to provide support and technical advancement so peo- ple can differentiate among regions, coffee varieties, and growing conditions." The NGC camp, mentioned above, is another way Antioquia's governmental leaders, along with the FNC, are trying to increase and improve specialty coffee in Colombia. Nueva Generación Cafe- tera collects coffee-farm kids for four days of classes, training, cof- fee tasting, barista-skill development, sample roasting, agricultural lessons, and—maybe most importantly of all—empowerment and community building. Now in its third year, the NGC camp has been able to accommodate 1,000 people in each of its first two iterations, and plans to pull the top 500 young coffee enthusiasts from among those participants for a more advanced program of training and de- velopment. "Those 500 boys [and girls] will need to make a business plan in the industry," explains Melissa Agudelo Monsalve, a representative from the governor's offices of productivity and competitiveness. "We will invite private investors to come sponsor those business plans." After the plans are presented, 150 of the attendees will be offered internships in coffee-related positions throughout the coun- try; three of the luckiest will earn international internships.