Peace, Piece by Piece: Youth and Armed Violence in Colombia

Juan saw a group linked to drug trafficking kill his brother. Gloria lost her brother and her cousin under similar circumstances. The two 18-year-olds share their resentment openly with a support group of about twenty people involved in the Conflict Resolution for Adolescents project. "I met my brother's killer by chance," says Juan. "He was still at large. He was scared, but I told him he had nothing to fear from me, because I know that violence only leads to more violence."

Those words of wisdom, Juan did not come by them easily. Luckily, in the months preceding the incident, Juan had joined the project and become a young peacebuilder. The project, implemented by Plan International Canada Inc. (Plan Canada) with funding from CIDA, aims to give young victims of violence, discrimination, or rejection the means to resume their place at school, among their family, and among their community. They achieve this by building on dialogue, openness to others and citizen engagement, and by searching for an inner peace that promotes freedom from strife.

Martha Espinosa, Plan Canada's regional project manager in Colombia, explains: "This approach focuses on human rights and children's rights. Given the extreme poverty and the climate of violence throughout the region, it would be easy for illegal armed groups to recruit these young people. That is what we want to avoid." Their path to peace, however, is not an easy one, because in this part of Colombia, the situation is tragic.

The location is Tumaco, a city with a population of about 175,000, on the coast of southwest Colombia. For more than forty years, Colombia has been torn by insidious internal strife between government forces and the two main armed groups: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army. This situation alone is very dangerous for civilians, but there are also other illegal armed groups fighting for private interests and drug traffickers looking for contraband routes and land to grow coca, the plant from whose leaves cocaine is derived.

This internal strife has affected all regions of Colombia to varying degrees. Tumaco is an ideal port from which to ship cocaine to North America. Consequently, armed groups try to control the production region that lies farther east and the road that leads to Tumaco. Whole communities, attacked, flee to safer locations. Many people seek shelter and protection in the city, hoping parents or friends can take them in.

Anita, a 16-year-old girl expecting her first child, recounts her tale of woe: "I had to leave my village when the FARC attacked our area to take over our land. My mother, my two sisters, and I found ourselves in Tumaco. We didn't know anybody. It was very difficult but, thanks to the young people in the peacebuilding project, I found a network that supported me and restored my confidence in abilities and myself. I've gone back to school and I'm going to raise my child, knowing I can count on other young people for help." In Tumaco, more than 10 percent of young girls aged 11 to 14 are pregnant. Raising awareness about family planning is all in a day's work for the group's facilitators.

The project has trained 300 youths and 284 parents in conflict resolution. They display remarkable assurance, determination, and ability to engage in dialogue. Peer training and teacher involvement have also proved effective in achieving significant benefits for target communities.

Nine educational institutions and 80 teachers from the region are taking part in the project. Cristóbal Portocarrero Bustos, a teacher at San Luis Robles School, thanks Plan Canada and CIDA for their support. "Because of this project," he says, "young people are discovering that there are other ways to resolve conflicts and to earn respect-ways that do not necessarily involve violence. They are learning to engage in dialogue, not only among themselves but also with the rest of society."

Plan Canada and the peacebuilding project are also active in other regions of Colombia creating youth networks that are becoming increasingly influential in schools and participating communities. CIDA provided $2.5 million to support the second phase of the project. Plan Canada is now working with more than 15,000 youths to promote a culture of peace and to provide them with vocational training to make labour market entry easier for them.

In Tumaco, a region characterized by poverty and violence and a scarcity of government services, these adolescents represent the future of a community struggling with a major and complex conflict. As these young people say: "Peace isn't a white dove; it is a colourful fiesta in which we are all invited to participate."