COLOMBIANS FORM SUPPORT GROUP ORGANIZATION HOPES TO BRIDGE CULTURES.

Byline: Dominic Berbeo Staff Writer

After a devastating earthquake in Colombia claimed hundreds of lives and left thousands more homeless this year, members of the Colombian American community in Los Angeles, the nation's third largest, were left feeling fragmented and without a unified way to help.

But after this week, with the formation of Unidos por Colombia, the estimated 70,000 Colombian Americans living in the Los Angeles metropolitan area have a group to call their own.

The nonprofit group is aimed at building a cultural bridge between Los Angeles and Colombia and organizing humanitarian aid for the South American country, which is also engulfed in a bloody 50-year civil war.

``This is like an oasis in the middle of the sad and violent crisis that our country is living through,'' said Maria Elena Hicks, the group's president.

Consuelo Pedraza, the Colombian consul general in Los Angeles, played a key role in founding the group.

``There are always bad things about Colombia in the news,'' she said. ``This group will unify the spread-out Colombian community here to celebrate the good things in our culture and act as a bridge between our countries.''

The group held a dinner Wednesday to formally announce its formation and honor some of its members.

One of the honorees and founders of the group, Dr. Carmen Botero, is co-director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Tarzana-Encino Medical Center.

A native of Barranquilla, Colombia, on the Caribbean coast, Botero also heads the Amanecer Foundation, which helps provide medical professionals in Colombia with better pediatric medical knowledge and equipment. She also started a medical exchange program between Colombia and the United States at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Another honoree, Carlos Hoyos of Anserma, Colombia, is chief of operations at Coptervision, a Van Nuys company that specializes in filming from helicopters and remote-control helicopters for commercials and movies. There are only a handful of companies in the world that specialize in his field.

Alvaro Villa, the owner of AVG Robotic Animation in Chatsworth, was honored for his pioneering work as an electronics engineer specializing in robotics. He has worked for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Disney, and done technical work on films such as ``ET-The Extra-Terrestrial'' and ``Battlestar Galactica.''

Those interested in joining the group or making donations can call [phone] or e-mail at unidoscolyahoo.com.