"The only road to equality - a sense of common humanity; peace - is sharing"
- Wamariya, 2018: 178
Who We Are Helping
Who are the people that we consider to be left behind? In Colombia there is wide range of groups that still suffer from some kind of violence. We prefer not to put labels on them because that can already come with certain expectations caused by existing stereotypes and stigmas. Besides, people shouldn't defined by the circumstances they live in. We rather have them define themselves. However for practical reasons, we do need to define certain places where we are going to approach people. Therefore, to locate our participants we have defined the circumstances they live in. Below is an unexclusive list that describes some of these circumstances:
- Lack of access to basic human needs.
- Lack of access to spaces of visibility.
- Physical violence or the threat of violence.
- Hate, discrimination and stigmatization.
- Forced and economic displacement.
- Drug addiction.
- Silencing and marginalisation.
We use the term “people of resilience” because it is those who have experienced the most difficult circumstances that show the greatest resilience. And that part of their identify is often underexposed for in the humanitarian world we tend to define the people we help in terms of victims, in terms of the circumstances in which they live. But it is the circumstances that need to change, not the people. On the contrary, we believe that those who have suffered are the most capable of walking up front on the road to a better world.
Click below to read more about Colombia's situation or to read about the specific places where we aspire to work: