They train indigenous and UNAL students on peace and good living

Generating peace-building attitudes and guaranteeing that the events of war are not repeated, in addition to facilitating content creators who expand the testimonies and documents of the Truth Commission Report from the territory, is the objective of the diploma course “Weaving peace , good living and the sustainability of the legacy of the Commission for the Clarification of the Truth (CEV)”, aimed at students of the Kankuamo indigenous people and students of the National University of Colombia (UNAL) Headquarters in La Paz.

“Weaving peace” and “good living” are concepts that, within the way of seeing the world by indigenous nations, allow us to understand the harmonious relationship that exists between the environment, the individual and the territory, based on a quality of life that is not governed by the production and well-being systems of the development model but by the guidelines of the Law of Origin. Building peace is part of good living.

Yusmidia Solano, a teacher at the UNAL Headquarters in La Paz, points out that this space seeks to train heirs of the CEV, generate peace-building attitudes and guarantee that the events of war are not repeated, in addition to facilitating content creators who expand from the territory the testimonies and documents of the CEV Report.

It should be noted that at least 453,018 indigenous people were victims of violent actions in the country such as confinement, forced displacement and harassment, according to the most recent human rights report from the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC). In 2022, 42 indigenous leaders were murdered.

Faced with this situation, in the volume entitled “Resisting is not enduring, violence and damage against the ethnic peoples of Colombia”, of the Final Report delivered by the CEV, the findings are related to the violence that for generations has affected the communities, cultures and territories of ethnic peoples in Colombia.

The document exposes, among other findings: colonial treatment and structural racism as one of the historical violences that ethnic communities have suffered, which were naturalized and justified in discourses and practices by the actors of the armed conflict; the invisibility that these people have suffered and has truncated access to their rights and recognition of their reality; the serious effects on the survival and cultural identity as peoples; and the invasion of territories, the subjugation, displacement and exile of communities.

ABOUT THE DIPLOMA

The diploma course, which began on June 26 and will end on July 30, is carried out completely virtually. 85% of the students are from the Kankuamo indigenous people and 15% are students from UNAL Headquarters in La Paz.

“The modality is asynchronous, which means that the students of the diploma will be able to manage their own times and learn at their own pace, carrying out autonomous learning, through the Classroom platform, where they will find educational content and resources available such as videos, infographics and documents, among others,” said researcher Solano.

The idea is that at the end of the diploma, participants will be able to analyze, appropriate and socialize the legacy of the CEV final report. They will also be able to replicate some of the experiences through the use and exploration of digital content, so that, as heirs and heirs, they promote commitments towards the implementation of their recommendations.

Among the contents of this initiative are: stories of victims and perpetrators with a perspective of how violence affected their daily lives; the periods of the Colombian conflict, the milestones that have marked history and the key explanations of this evolution, as well as the factors of persistence until today.

In the same way, it is contemplated to explain the local dynamics of the armed conflict in different regions of the country and analyze its impacts on ethnic peoples. A second version of the diploma is planned for August, but with a focus on women.

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