There are people who don’t just teach — they transform. People who turn curiosity into science, fear into possibility, and education into an act of hope. This month, we proudly celebrate that one of those teachers, Mercedes Arrubla Carmona, has been recognized with the 2025 Ángela Restrepo Moreno Award, a distinction that honors the life and legacy of one of Antioquia’s most admired scientists.

This award, granted by the Antioquia Chapter of the Colombian Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences, is presented each year to teachers who — through their quiet dedication and love for science — awaken vocations and open futures in places where opportunity often feels distant. This year, that recognition travels to the mountains of Jardín, to the Miguel Valencia Rural Development Educational Institution in the Verdún village — a school built by Fraternidad Medellín — where Professor Mercedes has planted knowledge and hope for four decades.

A lifetime devoted to teaching 

Mercedes holds a degree in Mathematics–Physics and a specialization in Learning Difficulties. Beyond her academic credentials, she is a teacher who has made education her life’s purpose. 

Since 1985, when she arrived in Jardín as a full-time teacher, she decided to stay forever. There, among rural paths, persistent rains, and young people filled with questions, she found her place and her purpose: to show that science can also flourish in rural communities. 

With each project, Mercedes proves that science is a way of embracing the territory — understanding it and protecting it. She shares: "From a very young age, I felt the urge to fight in every possible way to demystify the learning of mathematics and science. Removing that fear has always been my mission, and now that I’ve been selected to receive the Ángela Restrepo Moreno Award, it is a tremendous honor to show many teachers in our region — especially rural teachers — that we can do science, and we can fight to help our girls move forward and understand that it is not complicated, that it is not difficult. My call is for this award, given in the name of such an extraordinary scientist, to resonate with all of us and give us strength to keep ensuring that many more women walk these paths of learning with joy. Science should not be suffered — its learning should be enjoyed. And we must make sure that all our girls, and our boys too, but especially girls who have been so often relegated, can embrace it.” 

For the Fraternidad Medellín Foundation, which works to build opportunities across the territories, this recognition fills us with pride, emotion, and hope. 

Professor Mercedes embodies what we believe: that education is the surest path to well-being, that talent flourishes when it is nurtured, and that even the most remote regions can become centers of deep knowledge.