resolución de conflictos

Impact Arts has launched Home of Hope, an international WhatsApp community with thematic-interest groups that connects artists, cultural workers, researchers, community leaders, and peacebuilders who work in situations of conflict and complex societal challenges.

Many of the students we began with, back in 2006, are the first in their families to finish school, to attend university, and to build careers. The truly amazing part is that now, as young adults, their dream is not to escape. Their dream is to return. They come back to their communities—with purpose, compassion, and determination. More often than not, they come back to Ghetto Classics as teachers. Most of our current 42 teachers once sat where our students now sit. The learners have become leaders.

Which means, of course, that the program no longer “belongs” to me.

Ask any Bogotano about their perception of Colombia’s Chocó Region, and you’ll likely hear that it is a dangerous and remote place, visited primarily for whale-watching. These inter-regional biases are not uncommon—decades of armed conflict have disrupted networks of community and social cohesion, fragmenting them and threatening the practices that sustain communal life. And though a shared sense of Colombian identity exists, each of the country’s regions maintains a distinct cultural character that is often rooted in music.

Before traveling to Chocó, my perception of Colombia’s outer territories was similarly close-minded.

Son las 3:30 de la tarde de un miércoles en el Zona Neutralun centro de artes creativas y liderazgo para adolescentes en el centro de Ann Arbor, Michigan. Veinticuatro jóvenes y seis empleados se reúnen en un círculo de sillas en el B-Side Venue (un espacio polivalente que también sirve como sala de conciertos para 400 personas). Mientras una bola de discoteca brilla en lo alto, Ash, participante adolescente y estudiante de segundo de bachillerato, se ofrece voluntario con una pregunta inicial: "¿Qué te gustaba hacer en el recreo cuando eras niño en el colegio?".