EDUCATION FOR PEACE .
An article from the Ministry of Culture of Colombia
Between April 3 and April 5, the first national meeting took place for territorial networks for a culture of peace, an initiative of the Culture of Peace Strategy of the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Knowledge.
The beginninf of the space was marked by the voices of the Cantaoras de Pogue (Bojayá) who evoked the pain of their history; an echo to leave war and seek peace.
The song invited the 25 artistic and cultural organizations from the municipalities of Antioquia, Nariño, Chocó, Putumayo, Caribe and Bogotá, attending the event, to reflect on the transformative power of unity, mutual protection and trust in the ability of the territories to forge peace.
Space for mutual recognition of organizations. Photo: Paula Beltrán.The objective of this meeting is to recognize the artistic and cultural organizations strengthened by the Culture of Peace Strategy of the Ministry of Cultures and promote their exchange of experiences, methodologies and processes.
“In the arts you show us that other country that some have called ‘the geography of hope.’ We must move from resistance to guarantees of rights, so that we can advance beyond war and everything that has harmed us,” said Adriana Molano, Vice Minister of Heritage, Memories and Cultural Governance.
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(Click here for the original Spanish version of this article.)
Do the arts create a basis for a culture of peace?
What is happening in Colombia, Is peace possible?
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It is expected that during the three days of the meeting, these organizations will connect experiences, create peace networks and share their territorial processes, commitments and methodologies around the creation of a culture of peace.
For the Culture of Peace Strategy, these initiatives are platforms that, from the territories, make it possible to address daily violence, long-term violence and the factors of persistence of armed conflict.
The main purpose of the strategy is to enhance the political and transformative nature of culture in the care of all forms of life, as well as in the understanding and processing of conflicts.
“We work with children and young people, so that through culture they are part of a new world. I think that this meeting invites us to learn about the initiatives of the other groups, to know how we are all working for that long-awaited peace,” said Fernanda Tenorio Quiñones, who comes from Tumaco and is a member of the Pacific Folklore School Foundation.
A culture of peace for what?
Since 2023, Minculturas has been accompanying and supporting territorial peace culture initiatives. It does so with processes to strengthen its management capabilities, training spaces and guaranteeing the visibility of its actions. This is in line with the commitment to recognize that peace is forged from the territories and that the cultural efforts coming from the communities are decisive for the transformation of the stories of war into new imaginaries of the nation.
The proposal of a Culture of Peace is to strengthen political participation and territorial transformation, promote the sensitivity that art contains towards daily life, dignify life, process mourning and repair damage. To build, together, new stories of the nation.
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