Fundacion Fundamentes

Foundation was created in 2007 in San José, Costa Rica, with the mission of transforming the lives of children, adolescents in situations of psychosocial vulnerability through access to community mental health.

Its origin responds to the vision of our founder, Dr. Laura Chacón Echeverría: to bring mental health to the territories where it is most needed, from a preventive, community and interdisciplinary perspective.

Thus the model of the Casas de Escucha was born, starting in communities such as Pavas and expanding to areas such as Santa Ana, Alajuelita, Talamanca and Puerto Jiménez. These Listening Houses operate under the EscuchArte model, a model of time-sustained fitness, which seeks to arrive in the moment before and not at the time of the after, offering a real possibility of accompaniment to psychic suffering.

Through listening, word, creation and insertion into the social bond are ways to sustain subjectivities far from the destruction of yes and the bond with other people.

Since then, Fundmentes has promoted programmes to address central issues such as suicide prevention, violence, gender equity and access to education.