25 years ago, I was a newly minted volunteer with Peace Brigades International in Colombia. If you knew me then, you might remember receiving the regular letters I would send home to keep friends and family updated on my human rights work in a conflict zone.
Beyond the day-to-day work of serving with PBI (carrying out the actual protective accompaniment, writing internal reports, meetings, meetings, and more meetings), the human connections were the most poignant and enduring aspect of the experience.
Earlier this year I was fortunate to reunite with several of the community friends I had met half a lifetime ago. Visiting Bogotá for my day job, I was invited to an event that PBI was co-hosting with one of the Colombian human rights organizations I knew from my time, Justice and Peace.
Representatives from grassroots processes from around Colombia (Afro-Colombian, Indigenous and campesino) were meeting to join their voices and, at the event I attended, share their demands with diplomatic and UN agency representatives that PBI had convened.
I was delighted to run into several friends from Cacarica, near the border with Panama, who I knew from way back when. At the time they were internally displaced (in effect, refugees in their own country) but returned to their lands. To date, they are struggling for their rights and are still accompanied by the Peace Brigades International Colombia Project.
The reality is, efforts for peace and human rights are long-term processes that last years and often decades. Peace Brigades maintains that commitment. But it’s only possible with the help of people like you who believe in the same vision!
