MADRE's Sister Organizations in Colombia

Taller de Vida

Taller de Vida ("Workshop of Life" in Spanish) provides critical services for displaced Afro-Colombian and Indigenous women and youth in Bogota, Colombia. Founded ten years ago by two sisters—one a psychologist, the other an educational social worker—Taller de Vida works with youth who are at high-risk for being recruited as child-soldiers in Colombia's war, in which all sides exploit poor children to advance their combat goals. Taller de Vida's objective is to provide Colombian women and children with the support they need to resist this exploitation and create alternatives to the on-going violence in Colombia.

Taller de Vida offers trauma counseling and remedial education to help children who have been displaced catch up on their schooling. Hundreds of Indigenous and Afro-Colombian young people have received post-trauma counseling from Taller de Vida. Through their work with youth, Taller de Vida aims to help those who have been forcibly displaced from rural areas adjust to life in the city, defend their human rights and raise their political consciousness.

In addition to counseling, Taller de Vida offers after-school sports, art and theater programs to help young people develop their artistic talents and learn to express themselves through acting, dance, writing and painting. These programs help young people who have experienced enduring trauma from the armed conflict envision—and work to create—a more peaceful world. Through art, the youth at Taller de Vida are able to share traumatic stories from their past and build a network of support for their future.

Taller de Vida also works with women who have been affected by Colombia's political violence, providing programs that combine art therapy with income-generating projects. Taller de Vida maximizes the opportunity offered by these programs by holding discussions on human rights issues when women come together to work on crafts.

LIMPAL

Since 1997, LIMPAL has worked with women who have been displaced by Colombia's long-standing armed conflict, helping them overcome the devastating effects of displacement and advocate for their rights. Today, LIMPAL plays a critical role in the network of civil society organizations educating women who have been displaced about their constitutional rights. LIMPAL's activities focus on peaceful alternatives to conflicts, such as human rights trainings, the enhancement of existing women's and human rights networks, the provision of secure spaces where women and their families can build support networks, and the development of income-generating projects for women.

Working with over 500 women, 90 percent of whom are of African-descent and over 50 percent of whom are heads of their families, LIMPAL provides humanitarian aid and human rights trainings and documents cases of human rights abuses. LIMPAL encourages women to share their stories of displacement and violence as part of a healing process and works to achieve justice for displaced women and families. To this end, the women of LIMPAL created a documentary of their experiences entitled, "Let Our Voices Not Fall into the Void."

In addition to their work on the outskirts of Cartagena and Bogota, LIMPAL has done important work in the national and international arena to bring attention to the critical situation of women and families in Colombia. LIMPAL contributed to a special report on socio-political violence against women and girls in Colombia and was part of a team that organized the visit of the UN Special Rappateour on Violence Against Women to Colombia.