Putting down weapons to grow peace in Colombia
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Lorena Peña
For generations, people have suffered conflict and violence now, projects teaching former combatants and victims how to produce food are showing the way
The Training and Reincorporation Centre may sound forbidding but it s a place where former combatants in Colombia s conflicts can learn poultry and fish farming with the support of the World Food Programme (WFP). Peace is the way : this simple message on one of the building s exterior walls, which are emblazoned with murals, has been ignored by warring parties for 52 years.
Every day here, 187 former combatants and their families take part in agricultural projects as part of a process to bring them all back into mainstream society - the centre, in Arauquita municipality, is the biggest of its kind in the country.
This article is part of a series
to mark the World Food Programme (WFP) receiving the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize in Rome on 10 December.
“I’d rather lose war and win peace” – mural in the Institución Educativa Concentración de Desarrollo Rural (CDR) in Saravena, Colombia. Photo: WFP/Lorena Peña
The Training and Reincorporation Centre may sound forbidding but it’s a place where former combatants in Colombia’s conflicts can learn poultry and fish farming with the support of the World Food Programme (WFP).
“Peace is the way”: this simple message on one of the building’s exterior walls, which are emblazoned with murals, has been ignored by warring parties for 52 years.