How Bogotá’s 'Care Blocks' Are Giving Time Back To Women — And Inspiring Cities Worldwide

How Bogotá Reframed Care As Public Policy

In Bogotá’s historic downtown, a modest municipal building beneath a gilded statue of Simón Bolívar now houses a different kind of experiment in civic life: a manzana del cuidado, or care block. On a bright October morning, children clustered around a turquoise table while a teacher read a story; nearby, mothers learned to repurpose glass jars in a recycling workshop; in the main hall, women followed an aerobics class and laughed as they stretched.

What Care Blocks Do

Since 2020, Bogotá has opened 25 neighborhood care blocks designed to confront time poverty — the chronic lack of time that results from unpaid care work, a burden that falls overwhelmingly on women. In a city of roughly 8 million people, nearly 4 million women perform some form of unpaid care work, and about 1.2 million dedicate most of their time to it (often 10 hours a day or more). Women in the city provide more than 35 billion hours of unpaid care each year — the equivalent of over one-fifth of Colombia’s GDP.

Care blocks concentrate services in one place so caregivers can complete errands, access training, or take a moment to rest while the people they care for receive professional support on site. Services typically include free laundry, child and elder care (the “Art of Care”), legal aid, mental-health counseling, job training, and mobile outreach to reach rural or immobile caregivers.

Origins And Political Backing

The policy grew from research and organizing. Colombia became the first country to legally require the government to estimate unpaid work, and a 2012 time-use survey found the vast scale of unpaid care. Local movements — including the Mothers of False Positives, whose activism reframed motherhood as political resistance — helped push care onto the public agenda. Claudia López, Bogotá’s 2019 mayor, advanced the District of Care System around three principles: recognize care as real work, redistribute responsibilities across families, employers and the state, and reduce the total burden on individual caregivers.

The initiative began by executive decree in 2020 and received 5.2 trillion pesos (about US $1.3 billion) in the city’s 2020–24 development plan, mainly by reallocating existing budgets and repurposing underused public spaces. The city council later passed a law requiring agencies to fund and operate parts of the care system, making it harder for successors to entirely reverse the program.

From Brothel To Community Hub: Castillo De Las Artes

One dramatic example: El Castillo, a notorious brothel closed after a 2017 raid, reopened in 2020 as Castillo de las Artes — a cultural center and care block. Its director, Lebeb Infante, notes that the neighborhood includes many sex workers and migrants, so services there must address immigration documentation, job readiness and emergency clothing in addition to childcare. The Art of Care centers serve children from 11 months to 11 years and are intentionally flexible to fit caregivers’ schedules.

Services, Limits, And Adaptations

Care blocks are more than daycare: they aim to free time for long-term goals such as education or stable employment. But the program faces limits. Outreach gaps mean many caregivers don’t know services exist or distrust that they will be free and reliable. Some arrive seeking food or urgent help and are turned away. Funding constraints forced Bogotá to pause a Bloomberg-funded at-home assistance program that provided intensive support for caregivers who cannot leave home.

An independent two-year evaluation found the at-home program freed more than 18,000 hours of caregiver time, reduced daily unpaid care by over an hour, and improved caregiver wellbeing and recipient independence — but it was costly. The city piloted a lower-cost hybrid model that moved some therapeutic services into care blocks, cutting cost per participant by 57% while still reducing depression and anxiety among caregivers.

Political Continuity And Scale

When Claudia López left office, her successor, Carlos Fernando Galán, could have reversed the program. Instead, Galán retained and expanded many services, opening two new care blocks in his first year and adding programs such as nature therapy. International recognition and funding — from the United Nations, Bloomberg Philanthropies and others — helped sustain momentum.

Still, scale remains a challenge: more than 3,500 women have completed the city’s 30-day training programs so far, with a target of 9,000 — a meaningful increase but a small fraction of Bogotá’s roughly 1.2 million full-time caregivers. Officials say they intend to run both the more expensive at-home model for caregivers who cannot leave home and the lower-cost hybrid for others.

Global Interest And Local Lessons

Bogotá’s care blocks have inspired cities worldwide: Mexico City and Santiago operate similar programs; Guadalajara has approved funding for care communities; Freetown plans a care block rollout and temporary spaces by mid-2026; and networks such as CHANGE are helping cities develop implementation guides. Advocates like Ai-jen Poo argue that centering caregivers in urban planning can reshape access to public services and social supports.

At Castillo de las Artes a sign reads in purple and green: “Cuidar no es ayudar, es corresponsabilidad.” — To care is not merely to help; it is shared responsibility.

Spanish-English interpretation for reporting was provided by Catalina Hernandez. This reporting was supported by a grant from the Bainum Family Foundation; Vox Media had editorial discretion.