UNITED AT AFE we build peace...(1) Reychler, L. y Stellamans, A. (2005). Researching Peace Building Leadership (Vol.71, No.2°) Hungary: Cahiers Internationale betrekkingen en vredesonderzoek.Own

ASOCIACIÓN DE FUNDACIONES

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we build peaceUNITED AT AFE

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PRESIDENT OF THE BOARDOF DIRECTORSPablo Gabriel Obregón

VICE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARDOF DIRECTORSSoraya Montoya González

BOARD OF DIRECTORSFundación AlpinaEduardo Díaz UribeFundación Bolívar DaviviendaFernando Cortés McAllisterFundación CarvajalMaría del Rosario CarvajalFundación CompartirRafael Orduz MedinaFundación Ideas para la PazMaría Victoria Llorente SardiFundación LukerPablo Jaramillo VillegasFundacion Mario Santo DomingoPablo Gabriel ObregónFundacion PromigasJulio Martín GallegoFundación PropalEduardo Posada CorpasFundación Saldarriaga ConchaSorata MontoyaFundación Smurfit Kappa ColombiaBeatriz Mejía Arango

EXECUTIVE DIRECTORMaría Carolina Suárez Visbal

GENERAL COORDINATORPaola Rojas Bernal

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENTCOORDINATORErika Marcucci Núñez

EDITORIAL COORDINATORS María Carolina Suárez VisbalMauricio Sojo Vásquez

EDITORDiana Corzo Arbeláez

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PHOTO EDITORMario Inti García

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4 The AFE: Committed to Building Peace, Roberto Pizarro, Former President of the AFE Board of Directors

5 Give Peace a Chance, Carolina Suárez, AFE Executive Director

6 Walking Toward a Collective Agenda for Sustainable Peace, Victoria Llorente, Member of the AFE Board of Directors

8 Introduction: Building Sustainable Peace Depends On All of Us

18 Strengthening Institutionalism: Doing Good in a Better WayIN

DEX

32 Recovering Faith in Themselves: A Challenge for the Communities

48 Generating Opportunities and Revenues: A Stimulus for Social Prosperity

64 Education: A Motor for Life

78 A Living Culture: Taking a Chance on Development

88 Welcome to Santos’ Postwar

90 Are We Ready for Peace? Marta Ruíz

92 AFE Foundation Directory

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Cover ilustration: Leonardo Parra

2015

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EDITORIAL

Eight years ago, in March of 2008, nine corpo-rate and family foundations, Antonio Restrepo Barco, Carvajal, Corona, Compartir, Dividendo por Colom-bia, Ideas for Peace, Mario Santo Domingo, Saldar-riaga Concha and Social Foundation, decided to for-malize the creation of an organization that identified their commitment to building a better country.

The AFE was created based around this vision of contributing to sustainable social transformation goals through the implementation of social practices. It has grown to become a key social player with 61 founda-tions currently enrolled as members.

We are aware of the joint responsibility we share with the State.

To that extent, our work aims to place the knowl-edge and experience of our member foundations at the service of the national government and local govern-ments in order to strengthen institutions as the corner-stone for building true peace and prosperity.

Today, as is the case for the vast majority of Colombians, peace is at the core of AFE foundations initiatives and hence why we have decided to publish

this work, under the AFE motto: “United, we are more” in an effort to show how each of the initiatives we promote helps to build peace.

This publication has five chapters, each one dedicated to a specific issue: institutional strengthen-ing, community empowerment, revenue generation, education and culture.

Each chapter highlights how AFE foundations-generate a positive impact in communities through their programs and projects in each of these issues, al-lowing them to become empowered and manage their own development through the use of tools designed to strengthen their abilities to rebuild, and in some cases build social fabric.

This publication, in addition to showcasing the work done by AFE foundations in the search for true social transformation and greater equity; seeks to encourage individuals, companies and foundations in directing its actions toward projects that try to build peace through elements that differentiate the projects supported by AFE foundations: projects which focus on a specific territory, with a long-term vision, and based on the needs and realities of the communities.

We are convinced that peace requires a collective effort, and that we still have many challenges ahead of us before we can hope to change our country’s cur-rent reality. To do this, as an Association we propose working on an agenda that focuses on:• Strengthening public-private partnerships in order

to work hand in hand with the State, under the clear notion that each one has individual responsi-bilities as players in the society.

• Strengthening institutionalism and decentralization in order to recover trust and move closer to the ter-ritories; peace begins in the regions.

• Developing our initiatives in conjunction with the territories and their communities based on their realities and understanding their specific needs and legitimate interests.

• Changing paradigms and prejudices in order to respond to the needs of the post-conflict and interact with the populations and regions that most require it.

We are convinced that between us we can build a different future, if we want to. We hope this publica-tion serves as an example that “United, we are more,” and to examine this process, which involves all of us, in particular AFE foundations, if we want our efforts to be decisive in achieving a strong, inclusive and peaceful country.

Roberto Pizarro MondragonFormer President of the Board of Directors

–June 2010- November 2015-Asociación de Fundaciones

Empresariales – AFE-

THE AFE: COMMITTED TO BUILDING PEACE

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The title of this article is the same as that of a song written by John Lennon in 1969, which still in-spires us today and has become singularly important.

At AFE we firmly believe that we must not only give peace many chances, but we must also commit to it every day. This approach is precisely the kind of ac-tive involvement by our member foundations that has generated positive results; results that motivated us to collect in this publication the most outstanding peace building initiatives implemented by each of them.

Beyond what we understand by “peace-build-ing,” the important thing is, has been and always will be to work aggressively and in an increasingly

articulated manner in building a more equitable and inclusive Colombia. Peace is not only a matter addressed in conversation or in plans, it should be put in motion. If we want to give peace a chance, we must find space for the changes that we must face as individuals, as entrepreneurs, and as foundations.

As of August 2015, sixty-one (61) family and corporate foundations have been involved as members of AFE, all of them committed to the implementation of innovative, transformative, and inclusive projects aimed at building a more equitable and just country in order to guarantee peace peace.

AFE foundations have basic assets that go beyond their financial resources. Their knowledge, manage-ment skills, approach to risks, political neutrality and, in particular, their stability and permanence, which exceed positions and assumptions, is a differentiator and an advantage they have been able to leverage.

Through the foundations, the links with the communities are strengthened, and social action is channeled with a long-term view reflected in strategic, efficient, rigorous and skillfully managed actions, which generate added value vital to Colombian society.

Understanding the particular needs of com-munities, working closely in the regions, developing innovative and effective strategies, and dedicating ourselves to a long-term commitment allow us to generate trust for building true social change as part of the vision for achieving a peaceful Colombia.

Education, revenue generation, community em-powerment, institutional strengthening, and culture are the guidelines for the work we wish to highlight on this occasion together with some of the initiatives carried out today by our foundations in different regions of the country.

Compiling all the commitment from our mem-bers and demonstrating the full range of programs and projects they drive every day into one publica-tion has not been an easy task. However, we hope that these pages are a source of inspiration, an example and evidence that, as the former Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, used to say, “we must open our hearts, work tirelessly, do more and talk less,” if we want our future generations to live in the country we all dream of.

Let’s all work towards giving peace a chance!

María Carolina Suárez VisbalExecutive Director

Asociacion de Fundaciones Empresariales – AFE (Association of Corporate

and Family Foundations)

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“Peace is not just achieved in Habana, nor is it the exclusive responsibility of the Government. Peace will be achieved in a joint effort by all social players, from the regions, in particular those territories where institutional difficulties are plainly evident.”

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REFLECTION

SUSTAINABLE PEACEWORKING TOWARD A COLLECTIVE AGENDA FOR

The progress made in the negotiations in Havana is significant, although it is clear that noth-ing is guaranteed and that this is still a fragile process. However, if we want to make the most of this oppor-tunity for ensuring sustainability for probable peace, we cannot wait for the government delegates and the leaders of the FARC to sign the last of the agree-ments. We must prepare ourselves as a society.

As a starting point, it is essential to understand the two-way connection between ending the armed conflict and the country’s modernization, and its inte-gration in terms of competitiveness in the globalized world. No doubt that Colombia can best advance its modernization agenda and be more competitive if we end the conflict with the guerrillas. At the same time, it is clear that for peace to be sustainable, significant progress in the modernization of our institutions will be required, such as important production and business ventures that generate wealth in an inclusive manner, distributing benefits to all Colombians. In

(1) Reychler, L. y Stellamans, A. (2005). Researching Peace Building Leadership (Vol.71, No.2°) Hungary: Cahiers Internationale betrekkingen en

vredesonderzoek.Own translation

(2) Banfield Jessica, Canan Gündüz y Nick Killick (Eds.) (2006) Local Business, Local Peace: the Peacebuilding Potential of the Domestic Private

Sector. International Alert

the Foundations. As seen in other peace processes throughout the world, entrepreneurs have the ability to enhance or hinder peace.1 This is not only due to the power they have on the economy and politics, but also to the leadership they exert or may exert.

In this regard, it is very important to answer the question that has been frequently appearing in the last two years regarding what companies, entrepre-neurs and foundations can do to support the ongoing process towards the sustainability of peace.

So far, it seems that companies and business sec-tors (especially investors and owners) do not have a homogeneous attitude or response, and many have doubts regarding the true intentions of the FARC of actively participating in democracy and the market, as well as the government’s ability to guarantee mar-ket rules that apply to their investments.

In an effort to move to an answer to this ques-tion, we propose working from two premises. First, the territories are central to peace and sustainability. It is at the local level where Colombians will decide whether or not to build sustainable peace. The second is to recognize that, while the business sector is a key player in building sustainable peace, it cannot do it alone. It is essential that employers, civil society and the state work hand in hand in the transformation of structures and dynamics that have fueled and made the conflict possible. This is where corporate foundations, such as the 61 grouped in AFE, must play a significant role. Sustainable peace is a task that requires public and private commitment, accord-ing to Reychler and Stellamans. “... It is a political reality that can be created and whose construction

demands, among other things, the existence of a critical mass of committed leaders.”2

Around what commitment should these player-scome together? The answer to this question will vary according to the territory. However, in Colombia an agenda interested in contributing from a business standpoint to building sustainable peace must at least include actions aimed at strengthening democratic institutions and initiatives for economic, social and political inclusion. In this sense, actions directed toward building and strengthening local capacity in areas where state presence is weak, supporting economic enterprises in former epicenters of conflict, increasing the participation of vulnerable populations due to conflict and ensuring a respectful management of human rights are particularly effective.

The impact generated by entrepreneurs in this agenda is not based on making financial contribu-tions. Some contributions of this nature are required, but the focus should be on identifying and developing business and social responsibility models and initia-tives through its foundations in an effort to generate transformations that will effectively contribute to sustainable peace. In this sense, it is an agenda that appeals to the leadership and the innovation capacity of corporations and their foundations.

María Victoria LlorenteMember of the Board of Directors of the Aso-

ciacion de Fundaciones Empresariales – AFE Executive Director

Ideas for Peace Foundation

this sense, sustainable peace and economic develop-ment go hand in hand with social development.

This leads us to the notion that building sustain-able peace involves addressing economic, social, cul-tural and political transformations that aim to break the cycles of violence that have hit many parts of the country for decades, and closing the enormous gaps and inequities that exist between modern Colombia and peripheral Colombia. This will not happen over-night, nor will it miraculously appear the moment the peace agreements are signed with the insurgency. It is a long-term process that requires focus, commitment and effort from the entire society.

How can we contribute to this effort? This is a basic question we have to answer in order to start pre-paring for the construction of peace. This question has no easy solution because it can be as diverse and het-erogeneous as there are sectors in society. However, it is clear that some sectors may have a greater impact in this effort, including the business sector and of course

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INTRODUCTION

In order to achieve lasting peace, the priority for AFE foundationsmust be strengthening their work in the territories, in conjunction with the communities, organizations, business sector and the government.

LASTING AND SUSTAINABLE PEACE DEPENDS ON ALL OF US

BUILDING

Building peace in Colombia is not restricted to what the government and the armed opposition groups can do in a context of dialogue. It also requires the commitment of the entire society with a process that must be understood in the long-term. In doing so, the social responsibility sector plays a key role in the transi-tion process toward the post-conflict we all hope for.

For AFE, that commitment involves the respon-sibility to make a greater effort in collaboration not only with its stakeholders, but also with other players and various state agencies, especially in areas where institutional weakness is evident.

Fulfilling this purpose requires that companies and their foundations become the main players, because it is clear that the actions that tend to accomplish better results and positive impacts are those whose interests and efforts join together as well as those that involve the community from the start, as is clear for the 61 foundations that are part of AFE today.

“We are convinced that we need to focus on peace and work toward it,” said Roberto Pizarro, former president of the AFE Board and former Presi-dent of the Carvajal Foundation. He is concerned with finding the elusive formula to construct sustain-able and lasting peace which not only involves joint efforts but translates them into clear and tangible commitments for all, and even considers taking on new challenges to overcome fears and paradigms in an effort to visualize Colombia beyond its big cities.

Since the creation of AFE eight years ago, its members have made a collective effort to generate a greater impact on the social interventions in which

they participate. Following this same spirit of collabo-ration, they aim to achieve significant changes in the peace-building process, including the review of their relationship with the national government and regional governments, opening up a space for the generation and for the construction of public private partnerships for the sake of true social transformations.

Collectively Searching for PeaceFor AFE member foundations, building sustainable peace involves generating economic, social, cultural and political transformations that aim to break the cycles of violence that have hit many parts of the country for decades, and contributing to closing the enormous gaps and inequities that exist in Colombia.

This is the meaning behind the words of the directors of the Proantioquia Foundation, for whom “ foundations must not understand peace only as part of the process that is underway in Havana, or as the absence of an armed conflict, but as a process in which it is possible to contribute in terms of equity to focus on joint efforts with the public sector.”

According to Rafael Grasa, president of the International Catalan Institute for Peace, peace build-ing, beyond the negotiations,must be understood as a long-term process that aims to transform conflict, which means that it is essential to “learn more about the nature of the conflict and visualize peace as more than the absence of violence by focusing on the root of the various causes.”

In that sense, it is not enough to just look at the post-conflict under a light where the issues for

overcoming the consequences of the armed conflict prevail, such as the reconstruction of destroyed infra-structure, the removal of landmines and the return or relocation of displaced persons. Specific and multidi-mensional activities are required in order to restore or establish social and political relations between individ-uals and groups and end not only direct violence, but also its root causes: structural and symbolic violence.

The active participation of all sectors of society is required for the peace building process: governments and institutions at different levels (local, regional and national), the academy, civil society and various com-munity stakeholders and especially private actors such as NGOs, companies and corporate foundations.

AFE foundations are fully aware that this is a long-term process whose ultimate goal is establishing stable and lasting peace in Colombia. This implies building a new inclusive and reconciled society, and consolidating public and private institutions across the country with the capacity to handle the social, politi-cal and economic requirements of the population.

“Overcoming violence generated by inequity is possible if poverty is eradicated, the quality of life is improved, the development of individual and com-munity capabilities is enhanced and greater equity and social justice is achieved. This is what we must strive for

when we talk of building a country with a view towards sustainable peace,” states Ángela Escallón Emiliani, Executive Director of the Corona Foundation.

For AFE, the ultimate goal of its foundations is to work jointly with the government in a coordinated ef-fort to achieve social transformation directed toward a more equitable country with lower poverty levels. In this manner, the peace building process is as much a challenge for the state as it is for the business sec-tor, given that the joint nature of the effort is key in achieving sustainable peace.

Supplementing Government ActionsExperience has shown that peace is not limited to the absence of violence, but is rather a road built on the creation of comprehensive, participative and human processes at different territorial levels in an effort to supplement the actions of the state.

One of the most significant lessons in this process is understanding the importance of “working with the state in an effort to strengthen institutionalism and to articulate and coordinate efforts by placing the com-mon good above institutional egos,” as stated by Soraya Montoya, current Vice President of AFE and Executive Director of the Saldarriaga Concha Foundation.

However, in order to achieve this, the consoli-dation of effective public private partnerships is required, in which each player clearly understands his or her role. In this manner, the state is respon-sible for defining the guidelines for each action and providing the goods and services subject to the partnership Therefore, governments and public institutions must be strengthened.

On their part, private organizations will contrib-ute their management abilities, their proximity to the communities and their knowledge and expertise in an effort to supplement the elements provided by the state, but never to replace them. The importance of these organizations is based on their knowledge and effective management skills. Consequently, a joint ef-fort will achieve a greater impact: a country at peace and with equal opportunities for all.

According to Eduardo Díaz Uribe, Executive Di-rector for the Alpina Foundation until August 2015, the following are the advantages which the corporate

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“AFE Foundations are investing in building a more inclusive country with better equality and social justice, and less poverty by working with vulnerable populations in territories where institutional strengthening is required.” María Carolina Suaréz, Executive Director AFE.

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INTRODUCTION

foundations possess, and which are useful in supple-menting actions by the state: “Mainly, the capacity to assume risks and innovate, building new roads that may be replicated and escalated by our peers, com-munities and government entities.”

In this regard, the Former President of the AFE Board, Roberto Pizarro, highlights the fact that foundations and private organizations have a long life, which according to him “is of significant help in any peace and reconciliation process, because these are not short term matters. The advantage is that the private sector is and will remain where it is. This guarantees the continuity of the interventions.”

Viviana Echeverri, Executive Director of the Alvaralice Foundation, agrees and believes that the business sector must “assume a joint responsibility in building peace and, consequently, building the country.” Corporate foundations have a scope of action that is very helpful in this process, such as the capability for innovation in strategic social initiatives, the possibility to create long-term partnerships and the experience of knowing the territories. “These are virtues which will become relevant as the public private partnerships develop,” she concludes.

In different moments, the national government has recognized the efforts by the social responsibility sector in this field. For Beatriz Linares (RIP), former director of the now dissolved National Agency for

Overcoming Extreme Poverty, ANSPE, “the role of foundations is very clear. Given their wide experience in performing social work, they have all the elements required to design and implement initiatives that con-tribute to the social inclusion of vulnerable groups.”

On the other hand, Paula Gaviria, who cur-rently runs the Victims Attention and Comprehen-sive Reparation Unit, highlights the importance of the private sector in this joint process: “The ideal situation would be for corporations to go beyond their traditional responsibility, which is to properly execute their actions in the context of global agree-ments and guarantees, in order for them to create value that generates social impact in the country.”

Building Peace at a Local Level“As part of the logic behind a peace building process, which is based on reconciliation, and is fortunately the way the country is perceiving it, all players, including corporations, the academy, and the civil society, are faced with new challenges, which may be-come marvelous opportunities,” asserts Eduardo Díaz Uribe, former Director of the Alpina Foundation.

According to Díaz Uribe, in this scenario the country would seek out corporate foundations as allies for the peace building process, a challenge which must be faced with an open mind and a readiness to accept changes in paradigms since new players will enter society, different issues will arise and more territories will open up where corporations may not have been able to enter before, such as the Catatumbo, Montes de María, Caquetá or Putumayo regions, among others.”

This is a true challenge for the business sector and it represents “great opportunities to strengthen the social responsibility programs we are developing. We could then work with the communities we couldn’t access before because of the security reasons” states Mariana Jaramillo, Sustainable Development Man-ager for the Cemex Foudation.

This is why foundation executives agree that they need to tune in to a peace building vision that allows them to generate a greater impact in their interventions. Yet, what must AFE foundationsfocus their attention on? For María Victoria Llorente, current member of the AFE Board of Directors and Executive Director of

The ultimate goal for corporate

foundations is the joint and

coordinated effort with the state in

reducing inequality in Colombia.

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“No one can be excluded from this journey. Today, Colombia is talking about peace as a collective responsibility, and the business sector must understand that its social responsibility is directly related to building peace.” Paula Gaviria, Director of the Victims Unit.

the Ideas for Peace Foundation, the key lies in working from a territorial standpoint; foundations need to re-flect on the manner in which the interventions change the specific conditions of a territory, as well as who the players are who are involved, and which institutional players are representing the state.

In this sense, although each of the 61 foundations grouped under AFE works towards building peace from their personal expertise and capabilities, this process requires that each one takes a territorial vision into consideration, including interventions directed toward the communities in an articulated manner through national and regional projects.

In addition, based on this foundation’s experi-ence, which has been recognized as a center for though and reflection regarding the dynamics of the conflict, the business sector and its foundations must understand that peace building is a process where “the important matter is to identify how they can help because, unfortunately, not all social programs create a true transformation.”

“This is not only about direct contact with the communities, but rather how foundations can help a region improve its conditions. It is not about im-proving the conditions of just a few. It may be an

ambitious vision for corporations, but I believe this is open for debate, and AFE is a great forum where this discussion may be held”, concludes Llorente.

Challenges for the Social Responsibility SectorFor several years, AFE foundations have been imple-menting different initiatives in an effort to improve the conditions of vulnerable populations, as well as those in the areas of influence of their operations, through efforts which have helped the country in the process of building a more peaceful and inclusive nation.

Through their different lines of work, these foundations have invested in transforming the local realities of different players in their territories. This is why, given the current juncture, processes that have already begun need to be strengthened, including new areas for social responsibility organizations to participate in peace building processes.

In addition to the articulation, sustainability and developing a sense of belonging regarding the projects driven by the government and corporate foundations, in education, entrepreneurship or em-powerment, after the peace agreements are signed, institutional strengthening will be required, at both levels, in order to move forward with the tasks required in the post-conflict.

This means that peace must be approached from a territorial perspective that strengthens the capacities of the country’s municipalities and regions. One of the main challenges where AFE foundations are called upon to contribute in terms of the peace building process is in strengthening this institutionalism, which will be able to offer efficient responses to the needs of a post conflict when new paradigms will surely appear.

Proposals that contribute to strengthening the social fabric of communities affected by the con-flict, as well as to improve their living conditions, must be strengthened and encouraged in order to move towards peace.

The proven experiences by AFE foundations in certain territories will need to be multiplied and replicated in hundreds of communities in order to begin reconstruction projects in rural communities, as many of AFE foundationshave already been doing under the leadership of the Semana Foundation in El Salado, in the township of Carmen de Bolivar.

This task implies that both corporations and foundations must get involved with the processes regarding the attention and satisfaction of rights for the vulnerable communities who have suffered first-hand the ravages of war, and help them return to their original territories.

“We have to conquer these territories, not colonize them. We must conquer them in double way, in order for thousands of Colombians to gain access to business development in economic markets, better incomes, job training, democratic and political participation, and

“We contribute to building equity and a social fabric that may create the conditions needed for a new citizen in order to begin paving the road to peace.” Ana Milena Lemos, Executive Director for the Caicedo González Riopaila Castilla Foundation.

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INTRODUCTION

the right to education and health in a rural develop-ment context,” explains Mario Gómez, former social director for the Restrepo Barco Foundation.

The inclusion of marginal populations is an-other great challenge. According to Diego Molano, Executive Director of the Bavaria Foundation until May of 2015, “the private sector and corporate foundations need to consider how to involve the victims, the aggressors, the members of the armed forces and the veteran soldiers in their value chain. This will imply, in addition to working on targeted opportunity programs, the creation of psychologi-cal and social attention processes to promote true innovation in peace and reconciliation.”

In this manner, one of the initiatives imple-mented by the AFE member foundations focuses on developing programs for inclusion and reconciliation under the perspective of becoming institutionalized through regional public policy and development plans. This is based on lessons learned that allows for

the adaptation of the project and its generalization in order to make it applicable in other territories, and to even incorporate the knowledge acquired in the development of public policy.

Finally, the social responsibility sector needs to ad-dress momentous questions about what its contribution to the peace building process will be. However, the ap-peal goes beyond corporate foundations that perform social responsibility on behalf of the companies for, as Maria Victoria Llorente, Executive Director of the Ideas for Peace Foundation explains, the operation still needs to be redefined in light of peace by creating more prosperous and sustainable environments.

For Ana Paola Salamanca, former Executive Di-rector for the Carboandes Foundation until last July of 2015, this is one of the challenges for corporate foundations inside the private sector. She specified how “It is necessary that we, as representatives of the companies in the Corporate Social Responsibil-ity field, generate inside our own operations open-ness toward pluralism and awareness of the chal-lenges, commitments and sacrifices required to build a lasting peace in order to achieve a social balance in economic and political terms.”

As shown in the following chapters, with programs and initiatives to strengthen institutions, empower com-munities, create opportunities and income in the most vulnerable populations, invest in education in the belief that it is the motor for progress, and promote culture as the core of social development, corporate founda-tions have joined forces in order to move forward and address the challenges posed by the process of building lasting and sustainable peace in Colombia.

The peace building process represents a great challenge

for the government and for the public sector, given that

a joint effort is key in achieving

sustainable peace.

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SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITYCurrently, AFE groups together a total of 61 family or corporate foundations, with the aim of promoting joint cooperation, social innovation and exchange of expe-riences between its members, always acting with transparency to achieve a greater impact on interventions and contributing to social equity and the sustainable develo-pment of the Colombian society.The sense of responsibility of the AFE member organizations is oriented toward a collaborative effort in search of a common interest: the search for true social transfor-mations through countless initiatives in favor of guaranteeing human rights as a sine qua non condition for peace.They work for the inclusion of the communities living in remote areas, many of which are lacking water and are limited by the absolute absence of educational and health institutions, among other restrictions. This has led the foundations to ratify the need to work together and promote alliances with the state and the private sector.

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INSTITUTIONAL STRENGTHENING

INSTITUTIONALISM, DOING GOOD IN A BETTER WAY

Encouraging the development of successful management skills and contributing to strengthening public and private organizations and institutions is essential for achieving sustainable peace and community development.

that the government and the public administration is carried out in an effective manner.”

In order to contribute to the collective purpose of peace and the fight against inequality it is not enough to cover basic social needs through projects in education, health and nutrition, among oth-ers. Strengthening the capacities of institutions is required, particularly those involving public entities which, ultimately, are the ones which, in the long run, will guarantee the protection of rights and ac-cess to social services for the population.

“The conflict has been an impediment. The country went through the process of decentralization, which was needed to strengthen regional institutions. The nation was incapable of governing and bring-ing democracy to certain territories, therefore they became areas where illegality became the norm”, said Maria Victoria Llorente, Executive Director for the Ideas for Peace Foundation, who believes that it is necessary to rebuild the notion of “public” and eventually overcome the barriers that arise between the private sector and the state.

Juan Carlos Franco, general director of the Mario Santo Domingo Foundation agrees stating, “some of the problems that hinder sustainable peace are related to weak and even discriminatory institutions where public entities are inefficient. However, all the exercises in social development that we as foundations

must make specifically go hand in hand with public policy and institutional strengthening processes. With-out strong institutions no country can thrive and no intervention is truly sustainable,”.

Developing management skills, training public servants in regional institutions, training citizens to oversee and act as guarantors for the local authori-ties, contributing to public policy in different areas and providing technical assistance are some of the ways through which AFE foundations help in the process of guiding institutions themselves in detecting strengths and weaknesses and boosting their impact.

Creating More Efficient Organizations“We believe that creating social institutionalism gen-erates prosperity, community empowerment, valida-tion of the communities and citizen coexistence; and that, in its self, should generate peace in the commu-nities”, as stated by Jose Francisco Aguirre, Executive Director of Compartamos con Colombia.

For Mr. Aguirre, it is clear that peace is a consti-tutional mandate that cannot be understood as the purpose of a specific government. As the represen-tative of this corporation, he highlights that peace is an investment made by the country along with its different actors, which must be determined and designed for the long-term.

Based on this approach, their strengthening ini-tiatives seek to answer questions about how to create institutionalism from the foundation standpoint, how to build capacity in state agencies in order for their projects to have a real impact and how the private sector can play a part in generating a greater added value as well as social prosperity.

Ancouraging the development of successful management skills and contributing to strengthen-ing public and private organizations and institu-tions is essential for achieving sustainable peace and community development.

Adopting Principles and Methods Applied by successful organizations in their field of action is part of the institutional strengthening process that civil society and public and private institutions must embrace in order to move forward from “doing good, to doing good in a better way.”

Strong institutions are essential in building sus-tainable peace, in order for them to be one of the

pillars on which economic and social development in Colombia is sustained.

Inefficiencies and weak institutions in some regions generate consequences for the population, especially for the more vulnerable citizens who are blocked from accessing formal channels to satisfy their social requirements.

According to Ana Milena Lemos, Executive Director for the Caicedo González Riopaila Castilla Foundation, “the institutional weaknesses that exist in some regions has led some of us, as private organiza-tions, to assume the role of building and accompany-ing the processes, leveraging investment and ensuring

STRENGTHENING

An organization with efficient management multiplies the

impact of its local development

projects. This is the commitment of foundations

in terms of institutional

strengthening.

“The acid test comes after the peace talks. AFE and all of us will have to play a fundamental role.” Alpina Foundation.

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To do this, they support entities, organizations and companies in the development of projects, working on five fronts: corporate governance, strategy, financial sustainability, legal analysis and internal control.

“Our work with foundations and national, region-al and local public entities seeks to provide a compre-hensive look at organizations in an effort to multiply the impact of the projects that benefit the population. We always start from the premise that these organiza-tions can have a substantially greater impact, and that is what we bet on”, says Aguirre.

As part of this support, Compartamos con Colombia has advised more than 300 organizations, since it was founded in 2001, through a group of 15 professional service firms that seek to work toward the social transformation of the country.

The following organizations are among those that have opened the doors to this process: Pies Descalzos,

in experience, knowledge and advice, and the provision of resources required for these projects to be executed.

This is the case of the Arturo & Enrica Sesana (FA & ES) Foundation, which is committed to investing 100% of its resources in initiatives to improve the quality of life of children, adolescents and senior citizens in Colombia.

As Maria Claudia Santos, coordinator of the foun-dation, explains, in addition to financial support, their priority is supporting strategic issues for the implemen-tation of projects, such as sustainability over time.

In addition, the foundation is betting on the cre-ation of partnerships between various organizations that implement projects in the same line of action. “We give priority to projects that come from the coordinated work between foundations or between sectors,” said Santos, for whom it is clear that this transfer of knowledge allows achievements to have far-reaching and long-term structural impacts.

Stronger organizations, institutions and enti-ties acting on behalf of the population, within transparency and efficiency parameters, are the building blocks of a society that is on a path to reduce violence. Peace as a higher purpose must be institutionalized in solid and legitimate institu-tions that serve the population in order for it to be sustainable and durable in the long-term.

Towards Better GovernabilityIn the context of institutional strengthening of public institutions, it is the officials who assume the day-to-day relations with the community who require more training in an effort to understand the social dynam-ics at the local, regional and national levels.

In an effort to improve the capacity of institutions, the Cerro Matoso Foundation conducts training for candidates and mayors and accompanies them in the

formulation of local development plans. It also offers a degree in Leadership and Governance, addressed to members of the provincial administration and council-ors of the municipalities of Alto San Jorge (Cordoba).

As part of this effort, the foundation also accom-panies these municipalities in the formulation of eight projects, strengthening their infrastructure and plan-ning teams, under the guarantee given by the Nation-al Planning Department, to be the first organization in Cordoba to join the Project Structuring Network (Red de Estructuradores de Proyectos), which aims to support local authorities in the submission of impact projects to the General Royalties System.

“This advice and support in structuring projects using an applied methodology is very important because from there stems the development of infra-structure for progress in the area and for the welfare of the inhabitants in the areas of housing, parks, public spaces, and health centers, among others”, explains Luis Fernando Caldera, Executive Director of the Cerro Matoso Foundation.

For the Promigas Foundation, whose area of influence is the Colombian Caribbean region, “the current situation and policy frameworks require an efficient and transparent government that effectively incorporates the capabilities and opportunities of the communities and their environments.”

They develop initiatives that strengthen the work of the state in the planning process and public participation therein, thereby helping to raise the effectiveness of municipal development plans, espe-cially with regard to the education system and the achievement of the growth targets.

Among the most important actions, the Promi-gas Foundation highlights support for the local gov-ernments in planning processes for the design and implementation of public policies that facilitate the

Fútbol con Corazón, Tiempo de Juego, Colombi-anitos, Profamilia, Corona, Saldarriaga Concha and Carboandes Foundations, as well as some organiza-tions such as the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (ICBF), Artesanías de Colombia, and the Social Innovation Center of the National Agency for Overcoming Extreme Poverty (ANSPE).

José Francisco Aguirre explains how the work is also performed with an approach to peace, . “It is not based on an agreement, but on the role that institutions have to generate prosperity and reconciliation in soci-ety. An organization that represents citizens, contrib-utes to the community and efficiently promotes social development will be an agent that promotes peace”.

Through the Aflora program, the Bolivar Da-vivienda Foundation also enables organizations to increase their impact. “We try to strengthen the mis-sion and administrative management of NGOs, and generate a greater management capacity in more than 190 organizations in which we have an impact, which currently benefits more than 350 thousand people,” said Fernando Cortés McAllister, Executive Director of the foundation.

As defined in the program, Aflora “is a path to de-velop capabilities and skills, which allows social organiza-tions to reach a level of maturity where their manage-ment capacity is sufficient enough to become sustainable and generate a significant impact in the region where they operate.” This project involves foundations, associa-tions or non-profit corporations and NGOs.

Moreover, the Saldarriaga Concha Foundation has also implemented an institutional strengthening program with the long-term purpose of contributing to the social sector in Colombia by training individu-als and institutions, and strengthening them at a technical level in management and quality issues.

In 2006, the foundation created the Strengthen-ing Program, which seeks “to develop the capaci-ties of beneficiary organizations to generate social value.” As a result of this initiative, 28 social organi-zations and five universities were strengthened, and in addition, a report was published containing the experiences developed towards the consolidation of more efficient and sustainable organizations pre-sented in a standardized manner.

The strengthening of social organizations by AFE Foundations is carried out both through the contribution

“Social development activities carried out by foundations should go hand in hand with institutional strengthening processes. Without strong institutions, no country can thrive and no intervention is sustainable” Mario Santo Domingo Foundation.

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proper functioning of the education sector, a task in which the relationship with the local education authorities plays a key role.

There are also other initiatives in addition these projects, such as those seeking to arouse the interest of the community regarding the city’s main problems, in-cluding their participation in the “Barranquilla Cómo Vamos” project (How are we doing Barranquilla), through which social control is developed in an effort to enable citizens to participate in the improvement of their quality of life and demand transparency and ef-fectiveness in the administration of public resources.

As explained by its director, Julio Martin Gallego, the commitment of the Promigas Foundation in this area is “to build territories that provide development opportunities to the population with public administra-tions that have the management capacity to guarantee that development is a sustainable commitment”.

In this sense, their interventions promote the proper use of the opportunities to participate in the exercise of active citizenship and facilitate the imple-mentation of public policy in the communities, mak-ing the work of the state visible to the inhabitants.

are regularly organized with experts, social organizations and the management team in an effort to reflect on the information collected and processed.

The initial idea was developed jointly by the Corona Foundation, El Tiempo and the Chamber of Commerce of Bogotá (later including Javeriana Uni-versity), a partnership dedicated to evaluating public administration in Bogotá. The process has been so successful that it has been replicated in Cali, Cartage-na, Medellin, Barranquilla, Bucaramanga, Manizales, Valledupar, Pereira and Ibague, and has served as a model for other international initiatives.

On the way to building citizenship and replicat-ing this strategy in more territories in order to mitigate violence, the Corona Foundation articulates approaches, efforts and resources through consistent social invest-ment initiatives; it standardizes actions and provides knowledge, building innovative, flexible, adaptable, repli-cable and scalable models based on that knowledge.

Together with other AFE organizations, this foundation makes efforts to improve these models so that they can effectively contribute to public policy and state programs aimed toward the reduction of poverty and inequality, participatory planning and the promotion of regional development.

In Valledupar, for example, the Corona Founda-tion entered into a partnership with the Carboandes Foundation, whose area of influence is the depart-ment of Cesar. According to Ana Paola Salamanca, Executive Director for the foundation until July of 2015, these programs “help guarantee the develop-ment of strategies that focus on participatory peace building in different mediums and in the long-term.”

Meanwhile, in the city of Cali, the Alvaralice Foundation, along with other entities, is responsible for replicating this program in an effort to have citizens evaluate changes in the quality of life of the inhabitants based on the fulfillment of the Develop-ment Plan, which generates institutional strengthen-ing through citizen participation in public policy.

“Strengthening institutions and civic actions is an indisputable requirement for building peace”, said Viviana Echeverri, Director of the Alvaralice Foundation, which promotes this initiative through the development of the project ‘I act for Cali’, which strengthens the work of community organizations in an effort “to demand accountability from the Munici-pal Administration in meeting their goals.”

Thus, the program ‘How Are We Doing’ helps build a country with geared toward sustainable peace. It defines peace not only as the absence of violence but as the road built through the generation of comprehensive, participatory processes and human development at different territorial levels.

“Building capacities in communities in order to achieve a better life is the first way to promote citizenship,” concludes Escallon Emiliani, Executive Director of the Corona Foundation.

In this process, the Corona Foundation acknowl-edges that there are still tasks pending, such as convert-ing the idea of peace building from a distant concept into an active endeavor, creating and consolidating spaces and mechanisms for articulating it through joint work, complementarity and synergy, as well as allocat-ing funds to support relevant initiatives and qualifying contributions to public policy for the post-conflict.

In northern of Colombia, carrying out social control over the investment of royalties has also been a challenge assumed by the Cerrejón for Institu-tional Strengthening of La Guajira Foundation. The objective of this foundation is to achieve social equity through a better investment of royalties and other public resources in an effort to promote citizen par-ticipation and an increase in the capacity for dialogue with the goal of tracking the allocation of these mon-ies received by the department.

According to Roberto Junguito, President of Cer-rejón, a key issue in the development of La Guajira and for “reaping the benefits of the mining operation is having strong regional institutions and, above all, having the ability to generate high-impact projects.”

In order to achieve this purpose set out by the President of Cerrejón, the foundation also works toward strengthening the capacities of local au-

Controlling Public Administration: A Commitment Shared by All Strengthening institutionalism means promoting the capacities of citizens to oversee the government and to ensure compliance with the purposes that are woven as a community. Strengthening the surveillance capabili-ties of civil society has been one of the achievements of the ‘How are we doing cities?’ program, implement-ed by the Corona Foundation in partnership with other foundations, universities and companies.

Through the program, and in order to develop a more active citizenship in exercising their rights, the Corona Foundation conducts regular and systematic tracking of the compliance to the Development Plan by the government in several cities.

“Citizenship is built when it contributes to strengthening individual and collective capacities to create the necessary and sufficient conditions for a dig-nified life,” said Angela Escallón Emiliani, Executive Director of the Corona Foundation, a Colombian civil society organization created more than 50 years ago.

For five decades, the foundation has been “com-mitted to social development, improving the quality of life of the most vulnerable people in society and the participation of citizens in the formulation, design and implementation of public policies with high col-lective impact in the fields of health, economy, educa-tion and participation”, adds Escallón Emiliani.

In line with these objectives, the foundation con-solidated the ‘How are we doing?’ program, which has operated, since 1998, as an exercise in assessing progress and setbacks in the quality of life of citizens through predefined indicators. In this program, an annual sur-vey of public perceptions is carried out and work groups

“Creating social institutionalism generates prosperity, community empowerment, validation of the communities and citizen coexistence. That in itself creates peace in the communities” Compartamos con Colombia.

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“The role of foundations is essential for peace. Everything we do now is done for peace, today and in the future. We are, quintessentially, the bridge to a true dialogue between communities, the government and society,” Luis Fernando Munera, Executive Director of the University of Antioquia Foundation.

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thorities in planning, management, monitoring and evaluation, supporting the participatory formulation of development plans and instruments to render com-munities accountable.

In addition, part of the work done by the Cer-rejón for Institutional Strengthening of La Guajira Foundation focuses on supporting the formulation of projects in the department and in its municipalities through technical assistance and training of indigenous communities concerning government matters, citizen participation and social control, among subjects.

Moving Toward More Participative Public Policies

“One of our core bets is to influence and articu-late public policy,” says Ana Milena Lemos, Executive Director of the Caicedo González Riopaila Castilla Foundation, given that from their perspective, the private sector and foundations should achieve a transformation in which public policy is effective in decentralized areas.

As stated by Ana Milena Lemos, the founda-tion’s” purpose is to generate a greater awareness within the public administration concerning the role it has in ordering to guarantee its citizens the right to exercise their rights and their citizenship. This is a very long-term commitment.”

Based on experience developed in their own schools, the Caicedo González Riopaila Castilla Foundation has standardized successful teaching

problems in education, we make an initial, operation-al, logistical and analytical investment to design mod-els that provide solutions to these challenges These solutions must be relevant, sustainable, and scalable nationwide in order to generate a real impact,” as stated by the management team.

In this manner, the Dividendo por Colom-bia Foundation contributes to strengthening the public education sector, which it labels as an area of utmost importance. This foundation focuses on including those children who, due to their age and socioeconomic status among other factors, have been excluded from the traditional educational system. As part of this process, approximately 800 teachers are trained annually, which is essential to improving the quality of education provided.

Through this training, the foundation builds the capacity in teachers to serve a population that tradi-tionally shows signs of aggression, violence and the lack of acknowledgement and respect for authori-ties. The goal is to transform these teachers into the agents who will “transform the living conditions, behaviors and educational practices of children and youngsters,” as stated by the foundation. This capa-bility goes beyond technical knowledge and is known for generating skills for managing complex situations that arise with these groups of students.

Dividendo por Colombia strengthens the educa-tion sector in different cities and municipalities of the country by putting together a team of teachers and designing a teaching model through which enrolling in school can be a reality for all girls and boys, regard-less of their age or condition.

The Social Foundation is also included in the group of foundations that have joined forces in order to achieve institutional strengthening and is characterized by its work in direct social projects; it accompanies and strengthens different participatory processes between the communities and government institutions in different areas of the country.

“Building community projects that improve the quality of life and coexistence in different territories, influencing public policy to promote structural changes favorable to development and peace, and conducting consultations, partnerships and networks in an effort to attract institutional and community players into helping support development and peace processes” are the main strategies implemented by the Social Foundation.

These comprehensive development projects are carried out in different territorial entities (local,

practices and lessons for improvement. This has been one of the inputs implemented in order to con-tribute to the process of building public policies in education in the municipalities of Florida, Pradera and Zarzal in Valle del Cauca.

The strategy used is based on strengthening the capacities of social and institutional players for collective action focused around local development. The foundation provides the technical support for the three municipal administrations in an effort to qualify and exercise leadership in the participatory process of land-use planning in the education sector.

As a result of this commitment, 78 social orga-nizations are actively involved in the formulation of sector development plans in education and in early childhood and adolescence in the municipalities located within the area of influence of the Caicedo González Riopaila Castilla Foundation.

In an effort to influence the actions of public entities, the Dividendo por Colombia Foundation also participates in joint initiatives with the state to influ-ence the country’s public education.

In partnership with city and municipal education authorities, Dividendo por Colombia offers class-rooms for leveling basic academic processes and ac-celerating learning for children and young adults who are not in school either because they dropped out or because they were never enrolled.

According to the board’s guideline, Dividendo contributes to solving national problems. “We identify

AFE foundations seek to influence public policy by contributing to building development plans that meet the needs of communities.

“Building capacities for the communities to conquer a better life for themselves is the first way to promote citizenship,” Corona Foundation

intermediate and regional) in six areas of the country: Bogotá, Nariño, Valle de Aburrá, Ibague, Soacha and Cartagena. In the case of Bogotá, a process has been implemented in the localities of Kennedy and Bosa in an effort to promote community participation in the agenda for the development of that particular area.

In addition, since 2007, the Social Foundation has promoted the Undertake Peace Award, an initiative in partnership with Cooperación Alemana (German Cooperation), which identifies, recognizes and social-izes experiences in which companies commit to and significantly contribute to overcoming the conflict and its consequences, and creates sustainable and inclusive job opportunities for people affected by violence.

In the words of Eduardo Villar Borrero, Presi-dent of the Social Foundation, the people who earn this award “are, in some cases, large companies that have understood the work involved in venturing into the territories of conflict to generate development and opportunities; while in others, they are bold Ph

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entrepreneurs living in the areas of conflict and who have taken up the challenge of generating wealth and creating their own life choices. Both embrace a per-sonal commitment to harmonious coexistence with others and with the construction of society.”

Since 2008, the Undertake Peace Award has received 301 initiatives, those of which 63 were chosen as finalists and, among those, 29 were recipients of the award along with the technical assistance to strengthen their projects.

The foundations, which invest in social projects through their work in institutional strengthening and through impacting public policy, have understood that with their experience and knowledge they can achieve true transformation beyond the limits of coverage and resources, which is what distinguishes them from regular organizations.

This work is carried out in an effort to guarantee policies that are effective for the entire population, from which greater opportunities and conditions for

equality must arise, resulting in a decrease in inequali-ty, which is one of the structural causes of the conflict and violence in Colombia.

Share Lessons LearnedIn the words of Eduardo Diaz Uribe, the Executive Director of the Alpina Foundation until August 2015, “beyond the scope of supporting specific projects in terms of coverage, number of beneficiaries, etc., it is important to participate in the development of expe-riences whose standardization and lessons learned can be useful to third parties, to communities and mainly to the state. This is how we build for the future.”

In this manner, the Alpina Foundation works to transfer knowledge and skills to others in order to improve their social conditions. This is its strategy to generate a greater impact with projects that contribute to peace building.

An example of the type of work performed under this vision is the tracking process of the difficulties in accessing financial credit services in rural communi-ties in Cauca. “This experience standardized and appraised the barriers that prevented the people from progressing. We detected very specific aspects arising from the bureaucracy of the institutions. The results were presented to the Ministry of Agriculture and a report was published in an effort to solve these dif-ficulties and build on effective solutions for the public sector,” explains Diaz Uribe.

After this experience, the Alpina Foundation was able to confirm that one of the effects of the publication of the report was a significant decline of these barriers to access to credit by the rural populations in Cauca.

With the mentality of generating projects to trans-fer knowledge, the Alpina Foundation has also carried out processes in education and food security through improved methods of diagnosis and implementation in different areas of the country. The result of these processes can be seen in the 46 publications published within the course of the past seven years, since the organization was born, which supports this bet on stan-dardization of knowledge and experience in an effort for their learning to become meaningful to others.

In an effort to strengthen the capacity of other organizations, the Promigas Foundation also imple-ments programs that focus on the development of knowledge, through which it seeks to license the use of proprietary methodologies to generate greater impact and coverage based on projects developed in the Colombian Caribbean.

This is the case of the ‘Schools that Learn’ project, which seeks to strengthen the capacities of the players in the field of education, including the technical teams of the local education authorities, the schools’ manage-ment teams and the teachers. The Terpel Foundation was given authorization to replicate these practices in Córdoba, Neiva and Cucuta. The local education au-thorities of Monteria also requested that the Promigas

Foundation transfer this strategy in order for it to be replicated in all city schools.

In a post-conflict scenario, it will be increasingly necessary for foundations to share their knowledge so that the experience of those who have worked with groups of victims and perpetrators of the armed conflict can be replicated and increased in any new areas of intervention that arise, which include those in which the security situation has not been able to be addressed in the past.

Another significant experience in this field, and one which seeks to influence the transfer of knowl-edge and public policies, has been the one carried out by the Antonio Restrepo Barco Foundation in seven municipalities in the Montes de Maria region, in the departments of Sucre and Bolívar, where the founda-tion works in the prevention of forced recruitment of minors by illegal armed groups.

Building democracy in an area plagued by the confrontation between the guerrillas and the illegal armed groups (disappeared paramilitary structures) has led the Antonio Restrepo Barco Foundation to potentiate social development and create protective environments to prevent children and youth from fall-ing into the traps of war.

Thus, the Antonio Restrepo Barco Foundation accompanies the formulation of public policies for youths in the Montes de Maria region. To arrive at a diagnosis, a map of risks and opportunities is used and studied; including the investigation of individual cases of youths related to the issue of forced recruit-ment in each of the towns.

In this context, and with the resources from the Multipurpose Fund constituted by the Bolivar Da-vivienda Foundation and the Antonio Restrepo Barco Foundation, these foundations are supporting close to 20 micro-projects for the prevention of the recruit-ment of children and adolescence by illegal armed groups through the promotion of protective environ-ments cultivated through cultural and productive projects as well as organizational strengthening.

The projects are implemented by social organi-zations based in the following five priority munici-palities: Carmen de Bolivar, San Onofre, Ovejas, Zambrano and San Juan Nepomuceno, in the depart-ments of Bolivar and Sucre.

In the municipalities of San Onofre and Carmen de Bolivar, in partnership with the Mi Sangre Foundation, actions are coordinated with the social organizations which, for more than seven years, have been working in these regions on the ‘Promotion of the Rights of Chil-dren and Youths in Montes de Maria’ program, created by the Antonio Restrepo Barco Foundation.

The Antonio Restrepo Barco Foundation, who acts as a consultant for the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) and the Organization of American States (OAS), believes that the commitment of the company to building a less violent country is recognized in its work dedicated to the prevention of recruitment along with its support of education programs regarding landmines and unexploded ordnance risks.

In order to reduce violence in the country, the foundation’s management team has stated that the

Transferring knowledge and skills to others is one of the strategies for replicating projects in more territories and generating impact in building peace across Colombia.

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“AFE Foundations work together hand in hand with public players to create a social fabric in communities with fewer opportunities. We are able to reach neglected areas where the state is weak. It is how we contribute to the building of peace and to the post-conflict” Magda Restrepo, Executive Director of the Fraternidad Medellin Foundation.

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identification of the strengths of each player, as well as coming together to join forces based on the experience and the issues that each organization manages, is essential. This would be accomplished with the purpose of carrying out a joint task within a transparent process between state institutions, the private sector and international cooperation, involv-ing the expertise of the latter with regard to respect for human rights, peace and diversity.

In the search for sustainable peace, the Restre-po Barco Foundation is committed to supporting voluntary reintegration processes, land restitution and reparation for victims through psychosocial care, training, prevention of the conflict and com-prehensive monitoring.

In the same vein, the Social Foundation devel-oped the ‘Peace Building’ project in partnership with the Colombian Agency for Reintegration (also known as ACR, the acronym for its name in Spanish), which seeks to actively support the reintegration process of former combatants of illegal armed groups.

As a result of this program, in 2014 Social Foundation, through Caja Social Bank, supported the delivery of financial support to approximately 75% of the active participants in the program nationally. It granted 158 microcredits to business units established by participants in Bogotá, Villavicencio, Yopal and Monteria, and made institutional purchases worth more than 200 million from 10 suppliers, thus con-tributing to the effective fulfillment of the purposes of this government agency.

In addition, in order to strengthen the path toward integration, this foundation also developed financial education workshops to those people that belong to the reintegration process.

As Eduardo Villar Borrero, President of the Social Foundation, explains, “this institution promotes processes that encourage participation, conflict reso-lution, inclusion and the creation of opportunities for the excluded populations; efforts that are independent of political negotiations because we are aware that the agreements per se do not bring true peace if they are not supported by reconciliation processes.”

This is why the Social Foundation has targeted the creation of inclusion opportunities for people who have decided to lay down their weapons, providing income opportunities by helping them enter the market, allow-ing them to be part of their value chain and supporting them in their growth as human beings. As proclaimed by Villar, “only then do we believe we can contribute to the fulfillment of our mission: to help overcome the structural causes of poverty and to build a just, sup-portive, productive and peaceful society.”.

AFE, through the promotion of its knowledge management process, has enabled the articulation of resources and the development of projects and strate-gies for the consolidation of the civilian population as an efficient and effective player in the peace, reinte-gration and acceptance processes of the individuals who have laid down their weapons.

Committed to the Post-ConflictProantioquia, faithful to its mission, promotes and supports strategic initiatives for national welfare and equitable regional development It has actively par-ticipated in the emergence and consolidation of the organizations designed for the post-conflict, such as the Corporación Excelencia en la Justicia, Transpar-encia por Colombia and Ideas for Peace.

Aubad Rafael, CEO of Proantioquia, highlights the influence the foundation has had in these orga-nizations and in local and national capacity building processes for several decades through the creation of these and other institutions such as Antioquia Pre-sente, the Precooperativa Recuperar and Colfuturo Foundation, among others.

Through hundreds of entities, Proantioquia influences public policy and shares the stage with other institutions in discussing national issues such as rural development, demobilization, justice, health and poverty in order to create equitable con-ditions for peace.

“Proantioquia understands peace not only in the context of the Peace Process in Havana or as the absence of conflict, but from the contributions made in terms of equity. Therefore, it understands peace from the standpoint of an inclusive education for all children, where they are less vulnerable to violence; it also conceives it from a competitiveness to im-prove living conditions for citizens in an effort to ensure that there is less likelihood to engage in illegal practices, “as explained by Aubad.

Programs like the Centro del Pensamiento Social, ‘How are we doing Medellín,’ and work groups on security, employment, health, poverty, mobility and education are some of Proantioquia’s actions that have caused an impact in the society due to the positioning of its issues before the general public in meetings held with the leaders of the business sector.

For Proantioquia it is clear that in order to reduce violence in the country, the organizations grouped under AFE should continue to strengthen forums for discussion maintaining a work agenda that includes influencing public policy and support-ing the processes for generating equity.

“Establishing ownership of equity issues and peace by the civil society in order for it to be more cohesive and not dependent on the government is a challenge. If this cannot be achieved, there will not be an effective peace building process,” as pro-claimed by the president of Proantioquia.

Since its inception, the Ideas for Peace Foun-dation (also known as the acronym for its Spanish name: FIP) is closely linked to influencing public policy, strengthening institutional capacities in areas that have historically been mired in armed conflict, and also contributing to citizen security policies and the different discussions surrounding the peace process and the end of violence.

The FIP is a think tank that generates knowledge and initiatives to help overcome the armed conflict and build sustainable peace in Colombia by working in four strategic areas: dynamics of the conflict and peace negotiations; post-conflict and peace building; business sector, conflict and peace building; and secu-rity and defense studies.

Maria Victoria Llorente, Executive Director of the FIP, has stated that “the signing of the peace agreement is a historic opportunity to change the stage and end the conflict. A 50-year war has symbol-ic and very meaningful representations for the whole country, so this is the best way to join forces efforts and close the gap between the countryside and the city, which specifically implies that the government will rule over the entire territory.”

With over 15 years of experience as a political analyst on peace and national security issues, Llorente is one of the leading experts in the country. In terms of peace building, she considers it is necessary to perform a “bottom-up” approach and not the other way around, which “has often been the case, trying to establish the rule from above without the actions aris-ing from the people themselves.”

The Ideas for Peace Foundation constantly monitors the political negotiation process that is cur-rently being carried out with the FARC in Havana, “contributing, from our programmatic areas to the work with the High Commissioner for Peace. We also assist in circulating concepts and strategies to generate a favorable environment for this process in

In order to build sustainable peace, AFE foundations should focus their new efforts in areas where the armed conflict has been located; whose needs have not been able to be addressed due to the security conditions.

Foundations that opt for institutional strengthening and influencing public policy have understood that, through the application of their experience and knowledge, true transformation can be achieved.

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multiple spaces of public debate “, as recounted in its last annual report.

In addition, the FIP actively participated in dis-cussions on transitional justice in Colombia and in the political debate on the ‘Legal Framework for Peace’. Studies on key issues such as demobilization, reinte-gration of combatants, recidivism in the population, among others, are useful input for the formulation of public policy in this field.

Justice in the RegionsFocusing on the post-conflict, one of the main chal-lenges facing the country is the decentralization of justice; given that in some regions there have been no judicial institutions to guarantee the rights of the population in decades.

The United States Agency for International Development, USAID, in partnership with the Ideas for Peace Foundation (FIP) and other foundations, is working on institutional strengthening to improve ac-cess and delivery of justice services in regions affected by the armed conflict, such as in the 33 municipalities located in the Montes de Maria, southern Tolima, the Nudo de Paramillo, the Macarena and Tumaco.

Support is provided through the National Houses of Justice Program, which aims to cre-ate “inter-institutional information, counseling, referral and provision of conflict resolution cen-ters, where they apply, and implement formal and alternative justice mechanisms. Their purpose is to

bring justice closer to the citizens by offering them orientation on their rights, preventing crime, fight-ing against impunity, providing the use of formal justice services and promoting the use of alterna-tive dispute resolution mechanisms.”

In partnership with the Cerrejón for the Institution-al Strengthening of La Guajira Foundation, the Houses of Justice are also implemented in this department, specifically aiming to provide the region with access to justice as well as alternative ways to resolve conflicts.

Thanks to the participation of the foundation with local governments and municipal councils, it was pos-sible to open Houses of Justice in the municipalities of Barrancas, Riohacha and Uribia and hire trained con-ciliators in equity: community members who have the necessary training to assist in the resolution of conflicts in the context of ethnic and cultural diversity.

The National Houses of Justice program is also implemented in 9 of the 11 municipalities of the Urabá region in Antioquia, in partnership with the Unibán Social Foundation (Fundaunibán), where the foundation trains community leaders in equity conciliation issues in an effort to mitigate, prevent and resolve everyday conflicts and coexistence issues.

More than 200 mediators have been trained to carry out their work through their participation in grassroots organization programs. The leaders, trained and certified by the Ministry of Justice, are the mainstay of the Houses of Justice which have been operating in the region since 2007.

In 2005, two years before the creation of the Houses of Justice, Fundaunibán began a citizen participation program with community leaders. This program served as a platform for many of these par-ticipants in their progression to becoming mediators.

The foundation signed an agreement with the Ministry of Justice to become a facilitator in the process for the creation and consolidation of the Houses of Justice in the region through the development of content related to strengthening grassroots organizations.

Since then, it has trained a total of 208 mediators who perform voluntary work in the Regional House of Justice in the municipality of Chigorodó, and the Houses operating in the Municipal Attorney’s Of-fice in Mutatá, Carepa and Apartadó, in the family commissioner’s office in Turbo, in the Social Welfare Office in Necoclí and the districts of El Totumo and Pueblo Nuevo, among others.

The mediators are recognized leaders who have the approval of their communities and community action boards and receive about 120 hours of training on legal and human rights issues. They must pass tests in order to acquire the tools needed to mediate cases concerning minor claims, child support, boundar-ies, works, sales contracts, liquidation of the conjugal partnership and neighborhood conflicts.

For the development and maintenance of this process, Fundaunibán has the help of Softconcilia, a program designed to document all cases headed under the equity reconciliation initiative. It also

highlights the importance of this work whenever the agreements to settle differences are enforceable, given that the tool was created with the aim of helping eliminate bottlenecks in the justice system.

Gabriel Marquez, CEO of Fundaunibán, believes that this program, and the others carried out by the foundation for the past 26 years, contributes to improv-ing the quality of life of communities and achieving sustainable development in the regions where C.I. Unibán S.A. and its related companies are present.

As described by Marquez, “we are a founda-tion that bases its work on education and training processes. We are committed to comprehensive and sustainable human development in the communities where we are present, focusing on finding oppor-tunities and working on development projects in a participatory manner that promotes the strengthen-ing of the social fabric and cohesion of communities under the principle that we all participate in build-ing the state and in creating peace.”

In this regard, and in order to contribute to the reduction of violence in the country, the director of Fundaunibán considers that the members of AFE can strengthen their networking and work together to fully meet the needs of vulnerable populations through the establishment of regional, national and international, democratic and horizontal public private partnerships.

Marquez concludes that “our commitment as a foundation is to offer support to the communities we serve. For this reason, we must implement compre-hensive strategic plans that contribute to strengthen-ing social skills that facilitate the incorporation of the members of the conflict groups into society.”

To fulfill that purpose, Marquez recognizes the need to break down barriers such as the lack of politi-cal will to generate partnerships, the lack of resources, the lack of trust reflected by the communities, the lack of planning by government agencies and the excessive paperwork and fragility of the family and the environment of the communities.

However, having the support of other organiza-tions through AFE, Fundauniban has managed to obtain resources, gain knowledge of social interven-tion methodologies and acquire access to knowledge of new technologies. Furthermore, with the differ-ent strategies used to strengthen public institutions, Fundauniban hopes to obtain and further establish better links with the government in an effort to con-solidate territories with institutions, working toward the construction of peace and equity in Colombia.

“We can help eliminate the conflict as long as we act on a true agreement between the state, the society and its members”, Buenaventura Port Society Foundation.

“Strengthening institutions and civic action is clearly needed for building peace” Alvaralice Foundation.

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COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT

Through training projects in democracy and values, community leadership, encouraging the role of women, and social reconstruction in areas affected by the armed conflict, AFE foundations contribute to increasing the capacity of vulnerable populations in order to transform their environment and help them plan for better futures.

Increasing the spiritual, political, social or economic strength of individuals and communities to promote positive changes in the situations in which they live translates into empowerment. In a similar vein, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) defines empowerment as the process by which you obtain, strengthen and maintain the capa-bilities needed to set and achieve your own develop-ment goals in the long-term.

For other students of social disciplines and ECLAC researchers, such as John W. Durston and Daniel Du-hart, “empowerment, in the context of a social strategy, is a conscious and deliberate selection process whose goal is to attain equal opportunities for social players.”

This is why, in Colombia, a country considered as one of the most unequal countries in the world, as seen by a Gini coefficient of 0.538 in 2014, the foundations that are part of AFE work with communities in the process of empowering its members in terms of their development as well as their present and their future through projects for the reconstruction of the social fabric, leadership training and promoting participation and creating solutions to common problems.

Given the uncertainty faced by victims of politi-cal, social or economic violence, the efforts and re-sources of some foundations aim to promote human capital as a fundamental requirement for a successful empowerment process and as a way of contributing to the creation of sustainable peace across Colombia.

In addition to creating opportunities or developing skills and abilities in the individuals of a vulnerable com-munity, the real challenge is to include them as actors in society, because empowerment is not achieved by decree but rather by constantly facilitating and building it.

Foundations promote the empowerment of com-munities, that is, the development of their poten-tial and their ability for self-management, through various strategies that are built from the institutional strengthening of the organizations and the technical, human and financial resources and priorities identi-fied by the communities themselves.

Women who overcome historical gender barriers and unite around productive projects, young people who learn in the classroom to participate in com-munity action committees and in school governance, and victims of violence who return to the country to rebuild a community, are some of the experiences of empowerment promoted by AFE foundations.

Creating Social CapitalProviding tools and capabilities for communities to become participants in their own development has been one of the courses of action of AFE founda-tions, a task in which community leaders and social organizations become key players.

Melba Guadalupe Pinedo, Executive Director of the Gases de Occidente Foundation, explains that in the extent that a community has more social capital,

conformed by leaders and organizations, violence de-creased. It is in this vein that they make their contri-bution to building a country in which people are the authors of a peaceful future.

As stated by Pinedo, “a community with strong so-cial organizations that trusts its neighbors and authori-ties and that is supportive and has an installed capacity is a community less likely to generate violence.”

In an effort to contribute to this cause, Gases de Occidente Foundation, in partnership with the Car-vajal Foundation and the Viviendo Corporation, runs the ‘Listening Centers’ program in the neighborhood of El Retiro, one of the most violent neighborhoods in the city of Cali, where it works jointly with com-munity leaders to become a bridge between the com-munity and its institutions, facilitating timely attention routes and supporting conflict resolution.

Empowering excluded individuals within the community is one of the proposals by the Gases de Occidente Foundation, for this district of Cali, the capital of Valle del Cauca, which is frequently associ-ated with a high prevalence of violence, drug abuse,

COMMUNITIESPromoting community empowerment means

promoting self-management skills

in these communities in order for them to become key players in their present and

in their future.

RECOVERING FAITH IN THEMSELVES: A CHALLENGE FOR THE

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unemployment, gangs, teenage pregnancy, homeless-ness and overcrowding, just to mention some of the most relevant social issues that affect this district.

Through this ‘Listening Center,’ the locals who are used to “seeing, listening and saying nothing”’- can safely raise their concerns and compart their everyday problems concerning family, school or neighborhood conflicts, and receive guidance and help.

The opportunity to meet and listen builds trust between community members, mitigates and re-duces the damage caused by the use of psychoactive substances among the inhabitants, offers alternatives to conflict and articulates the actions of the various public and private entities that address the neighbor-hood’s problems.

For this process to be successful, the first step was to form a group of leaders who received the necessary training to become operators in the field. Today, they are the ones who listen and give advice. If required, they guide people when they need assistance from a particu-lar institution and provide advice on managing projects.

Although the process has faced difficulties, the Listening Center has gained a good reputation in the community and has earned its place as a player that

Rebuilding Social FabricAllowing the communities to regain confidence in themselves is a challenge that increases in areas that have been directly affected by the conflict and requires reconciliation and reconstruction processes, not only in terms of its presence in the physical infrastructure but also in terms of its existence in the hearts of the community members.

A wristband made with the shapes of little multicol-ored men holding hands, forming a chain reminiscent of the paper chains made by children in school, is the symbol devised by the Semana Foundation to represent the Partnership for the Reconstruction of El Salado (de-partment of Bolivar), which had become a ghost town since the death of 60 of its community members in the Montes de Maria region after 450 men of the Northern Bloc of the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia attacked the town for four days in the year 2000.

Most of its 7,000 inhabitants became victims of forced displacement, roaming the country without a home until two years after the massacre when, given the lack of opportunities, they abandoned their fears and returned to their homeland in search of a better future.

Since 2009, the Semana Foundation, alongside public institutions, private sector companies and corporate foundations, is working to try to heal the wounds of war, rebuilding the economic structures and restoring the social fabric.

To achieve these goals, Claudia García, director of the Semana Foundation, with the support of the Carvajal Foundation, identified seven comprehensive intervention areas: infrastructure, community devel-opment, economic development, health, education, culture and security. These areas were pillars for the creation of a pilot plan for restitution and repara-tion in the country. Although the end of this story is still very distant, this foundation has already taken the first steps towards the return and recovery of the community of El Salado.

The creation of a health center and a center for early childhood care, the reconstruction of the house of culture, the returning of lands to some of the families, the building of a sewage system, and the implementation of productive projects with the support and joint efforts of different players, are some examples of the transformation that this community is experiencing.

As stated by Claudia García, Director of the Semana Foundation, “the partnership for the recon-struction of El Salado has become a replicable system in which a community may be helped to manage the return of state institutions to community members in order to fulfill their duty of guaranteeing the rights of communities, with the good will and responsibility of private companies, which calls for the contribution of their knowledge and skills in the process.”

As explained by García, the foundation is com-mitted to the development of communities based on the concept of generating inclusion, equity and guaranteeing individual and communal rights using the action and capacities of the communities as a stepping stone, and through a public-private partner-ship that links the contribution of both sectors.

According to its director, a grassroots develop-ment process implies that the community decides what it wants its future to be, and the foundations support and articulate their role with a base in these goals, thus achieving results consistent with the needs of the people.

For Claudia García, it is clear that “a community is strengthened through its leaders, organizations and participatory forums so that eventually the foundation can step back, leaving behind a community capable of directing its own development, managing its relations with the state and seeking the help of the private sector.”

“An empowered community learns to fight for what is rightfully theirs through established channels, but it requires the presence of institutions that re-spond to their calls and guarantee their rights,” adds the director of the Semana Foundation, noting the need for the development of a comprehensive process

can help change the mentality of the people in a neigh-borhood, where, until recently, speaking and being heard was unthinkable; this has generated other social recogni-tion dynamics among citizens and a path to peaceful coexistence at personal, familial and local levels.

The director of the Gases de Occidente Foun-dation emphasizes the necessity for partnerships in order to strengthen the social fabric of the most vulnerable communities and increase social capital and reduce violence. “In this way, we seek to generate management capabilities in grassroots organizations and community leaders, as is also the case of Potrero Grande in the 21st district of Cali and in the north of Cauca and Buenaventura.”

In the same vein, the Caicedo González Riopaila Castilla Foundation follows a course of action that promotes social management for the welfare of the communities through which it seeks to strengthen the functional capacities of families and their members.

With training in entrepreneurship and civic cul-ture, participants gain knowledge about state institu-tions, how to exercise their rights and empowerment in dialogue with local authorities. These processes are executed through the promotion of associations and support groups between the families, which also generates a strengthening and understanding of the collective and the community.

As Ana Milena Lemos, Executive Director of the Caicedo González Riopaila Castilla Foundation, has said, this work can contribute to the transformation of new citizens and build social capital with the abil-ity to create the conditions for building peace.

From joint work among

inhabitants and an understanding of collective efforts,

opportunities arise to strengthen

communities that are working towards building peace.

“A community with strong social organizations that trusts its neighbors and its authorities and that is supportive and has an installed capacity is a community less likely to generate violence.” Gases de Occidente Foundation.

“A grassroots development process implies that the community decides its future and the foundations support and articulate the work needed in order to complete those goals, thus achieving results consistent with the needs of the people.” Semana Foundation.

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in which the institutions are strengthened simultane-ously with the empowerment of the people.

In rural areas, agro-ecological projects are also an option, an opportunity and an exercise that allows com-munities to rebuild their social fabric and shape their own destiny. In this case, the Alpina Foundation and the Government of Bolivar converted an abandoned site into what is now the El Salado Agro-ecological Park with 7.2 hectares of land acquired by the community.

The people of El Salado participated in open workshops related to the implementation of sustain-able comprehensive farming techniques. The work-shop included courses in preparing the soil, animal feeding, and entrepreneurship and management, among others. The goal is for participants to replicate these types of projects in an effort to improve food security in the territories they inhabit.

Rebuilding the social fabric is a latent challenge in populations that have been directly and indirectly affected by the armed conflict. The Antonio Re-strepo Barco Foundation has joined in addressing this challenge; the foundation’s “interventions in these communities are intended to ensure the fundamental rights of children who have been victims of conflict and participate in the social construction of what is needed to recover the welfare and quality of life we all deserve “, explains Mario Gómez, Social Director of the Foundation until February 2015.

Currently, one of the projects being developed by the foundation is the strengthening and training of the Embera-Katío indigenous reserves located in the highlands of San Jorge and Sinú, in the Depart-ment of Córdoba. The work in this region consists of

grams that allow recognition of the organizational and territorial autonomy of the Wayuu people by creating leadership programs and comprehensive plans for the community and strengthening the Consejo Superior de Palabreros (Council of Mediators and Legal Advisors for the Community) in terms of decision-making.

In this context, one of the lines of work focuses on securing food for the indigenous community, a program which is leveraged by the promotion of na-tive foods as a symbol of identity, pride and belong-ing. The goal is to strengthen indigenous production systems and native crops, increasing production and consumption in local markets as a strategy to generate community empowerment.

Otto Vergara asserts how “working towards em-powerment is vital. While some organizations focus only on improving the living conditions of the communities with whom they have a relationship, we try to generate impact by helping them become more active and having them participate in the political decision-making and development processes of their region. The creation of democracy in ethnic groups generates strong organiza-tions and sustainability in all kinds of projects.”

In addition to the Wayuu ethnic group, the Wiwa, Kogi and Arhuaco communities also live in

serving the population with a differential approach in order to protect and guarantee the rights of the people, especially those who have been violated as a result of the armed conflict and the violence caused by their displacement from Chocó.

Through this project, the foundation educates people on the risk of landmines, offers care to those who suffered consequences of violence and estab-lishes dialogues to achieve empowerment and the intervention of major needs of the community, as presented by the villagers themselves.

A More Empowered CommunityIn the Cerrejón Indigenous Guajira Foundation, the goal behind the transformation process focuses on the empowerment of the Wayuu community, which is the largest ethnic group in Colombia, with their settle-ments located in the department of La Guajira, the department with the largest number of indigenous inhabitants in the country; which is why they are very important in the social development of the region.

The department also borders with areas that present high levels of violence and poverty where historically the indigenous communities have been attacked by illegal armed groups. It is in this context that the “intercultural work of the foundation” be-comes important; “work which has been instrumental in the recognition of what peace is in Colombia, in the region and how they could prepare for a post-conflict,” explains Otto Vergara, Executive Director of the Cerrejón Indigenous Guajira Foundation.

The work done by the Cerrejón Indigenous Gua-jira Foundation focuses on the development of pro-

the region, making it necessary to strengthen politi-cal, economic, social and environmental participa-tion based on their multicultural differences in an effort to create an environment that protects the rights of all indigenous people.

In Urabá and Magdalena, Fundaunibán has implemented a social management model for the improvement of living conditions, which aims to strengthen the social fabric in regions where C.I. Unibán S.A. and its related companies are present This model is based on a methodology supported by community participation and organization, which generates positive impacts on quality of life indicators in the Colombian banana regions.

In its 26 years of continuous work, Fundaunibán has trained more than 3000 people in citizen par-ticipation and local management. “The foundation is convinced that the best way to tackle violence is through citizen and community participation, under-stood as a strategy for identifying the needs of a com-munity, prioritizing them and developing alternatives for their solution,” as stated by Gabriel Marquez, the foundation’s Executive Director.

Towards a More Active CitizenshipIn 2008, the Promigas Foundation began implement-ing the ‘Youth Civic’ project in Barranquilla with the support of the municipal and departmental education authorities, convinced that, in order for empower-ment to exist, it is necessary to promote leadership and participation tools, starting with the schools.

This means that lessons in math, geography, biol-ogy or chemistry, between the eighth and eleventh grades (equivalent to the 4 years of high school), are

AFE foundations promote the active

participation of citizens in the

development of their communities.

“A grassroots development process implies that a community is the one that decides about its own future. Foundations support and coordinate such work based on these aims, achieving coherent processes according to peoples’ needs.” Semana Foundation.

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complemented with seminars and workshops for stu-dents and teachers for the development of citizenship skills, through the application of real participation in the processes of their communities.

The goal is for individuals to recognize participa-tion mechanisms in schools and communities in order for them to become empowered and act in school governance and community action boards. In addition, they learn the methodology for the development and management of international cooperation projects.

The program started in four schools, and now 45 schools are currently participating; institutions which have certified more than 1,200 students and 828 teachers in the knowledge of their city, their rights and their responsibilities.

Julio Martin Gallego, Executive Director of the Promigas Foundation, believes that citizenship education is the gateway to a culture of peace. “Through it, we can understand and break down the prejudices and stereo-types that divide us; establish relationships based on cooperation and solidarity; better understand the world around us in terms of its diversity and plurality; develop skills that help us to create an open dialogue with others and build a fairer society, promote respect for human rights and, especially, learn to solve problems and con-flicts in a peaceful manner,” Gallego concludes.

Programs that strengthen the capacity and participation of young people in order for them to contribute in local development are also part of the

authors of great transformations in terms of local, regional and national development.

Enhancing the role of women as key players in the progress and welfare of society is one of the courses of action used by the foundations for gender empowerment. According to the management team at the Belcorp Foundation, “when women are em-powered, they become multipliers and key players in social transformation because they strive to improve the quality of life of their families and they contribute greatly to their community.”

This commitment to building the country through women’s empowerment is in line with the work done by the Belcorp Corporation, which re-gards women as their reason for being, and directs its actions to providing them with opportunities. “Every day we work to contribute to the increase in women’s capabilities and potential in order for them to become the authors of their own lives and participate in the construction of their environment,” as declared by the directors of the Belcorp Foundation.

Through its “Great Women” project, initially aimed at the consulters in the company, this foun-dation promotes entrepreneurship and provides comprehensive training in partnership with four universities in order to develop the economic, social and emotional potential of the women.

Today, with the support of the program, 10,000 women in eight cities of Colombia are working toward their financial independence, building support networks for the prevention of abuse and to improve their self-esteem. However, the benefits are not lim-ited to just them because, according to the data pro-vided by the foundation, mothers spend 90 percent of their income on their families, which represents better welfare for their children.

Similarly, the Mujeres de Éxito Foundation seeks to “increase the visibility and leadership of women in the processes for the collective construction of social, economic, environmental and political capital”.

According to the Executive Director Nancy Valero, who has worked over 20 years on the topics of empow-erment, political rights, autonomy and self-manage-ment of women, in order to achieve this they develop projects with a gender perspective in partnership with public sector entities and private institutions.

Among the specific actions carried out to fulfill its goal, the foundation highlights the work done by Co-lombian women who, due to their dedication to service, initiatives, perseverance, and professional growth, effort and authenticity, have contributed to the development of the country through the Women’s’ Achievement Award.

Also, in conjunction with the Centre for Enter-prise Development, the Mujeres de Éxito Founda-tion weaves a network of women entrepreneurs in an effort to multiply successful business experiences. Currently, 315 women participate in this network and receive training on gender issues and leadership.

In 2012, the Foundation moved forward with a public-private partnership with the Ministry of Agri-culture to carry out the Rural Women Enterprises and Partnerships Contest, which benefited around 1,500 foundations in 27 municipalities. This proj-ect also had the support of other AFE foundations, such as the Social Foundation, the Gases del Caribe Foundation, Fundaunibán and the Smurfit Kappa Colombia Foundation.

The commitment to the empowerment of women can also be seen in the projects led by the WWB Foundation. Daniela Konietzko, President of the foundation, emphasizes how “it has been proven that women can break the poverty cycle if they are offered income and opportunities and if they invest in health and education for their children, thus making a significant contribution toward equity and peace.”

At the Center for Women’s Leadership of the WWB Foundation, 1,151 women in the capital of Valle del Cauca have been trained and educated on financial education and leadership issues. In addi-tion, some have been able to access credit to finance their micro and small enterprise projects thanks to the resources that the organization offers.

work developed by the Surtigas Foundation in the department of Córdoba, as explained by its director, Maria Claudia Trucco.

Under the ‘Transforming Leadership’ program and the ‘Youth Leadership and Citizenship’ diploma course, the foundation provides training in civic and democratic values and encourages young people to lead the building of cultural, political and economic processes in their environment. Thus, they become essential players in the promotion of progress in their communities.

“Our priority is to work with young people, be-cause it is they who are largely exposed to the exclu-sion from academic and employment opportunities, and to the recruitment by illegal groups, among other issues,” says Maria Claudia Trucco.

Thus, the challenge is for the foundation to implement projects in which young people become a key population group for the country’s development, which, in turn, develops capacities for participation and socio-productive inclusion.

The Fanalca Foundation also contributes to this common goal of educating the population on issues of civic culture and leadership. In 2013, as part of this program, 1,936 children participated in work-shops, discussions and civic campaigns that sought to promote human behavior based on understanding their obligations and rights.

Elizabeth Gutierrez, Executive Director of the Fanalca Foundation, highlights that the goal of the program is to educate citizens to respect values and educate leaders in the creation of harmonic relation-ships with others based on compliance with rules of coexistence, which is linked to the processes for the creation of healthy living through the recovery of parks and public spaces in the capital of Valle del Cauca.

The Propal Foundation also has a program to build skills and capacity in citizens in order for them to be active participants in the construction and development of their communities. “To build a fair country, we must work on the development of capable and empowered communities, therefore we need to support the state as well as the other players,” says Eduardo Posada Corpas, Executive Director of the Propal Foundation.

This program targets leaders and managers of the community who may contribute to the solution of fundamental issues in governance in an effort to achieve social empowerment in the regions.

Women – Key Players in the Development ProcessEmpowering girls and boys, women and the elderly is a requirement necessary in order to achieve social justice, other than being a requirement for building an egalitarian and peaceful society. This is where the importance of the work by AFE founda-tions lies: empowering sectors of the population through education programs and the creation of opportunities in order for them to become the

Based on the conviction of the

importance of the role that women play

in the development of their families and

their communities, foundations offer opportunities for

their training and empowerment.

“Working towards empowerment is vital. The greatest impact is achieved by helping them become more active and having them participate in the political decision-making processes and the development of their regions.” Cerrejón Foundation. Ph

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“Society as a whole needs to take on the task of decreasing violence due to the fact that it is a complex, diverse, widespread and entrenched phenomenon in our society.” Promigas Foundation.

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Maria Lucía Restrepo is one of the entrepre-neurs who succeeded thanks to the support of the WWB Foundation. She starts grinding corn at 4:30 AM, preparing the products she sells in the Quesera Pasoancho. Arepas (flat corn bread), empanadas (pastries) and cheese sticks are part of the product portfolio of this 62-year-old woman who plans, in her own words, “to continue fighting to make my business more and more prosperous.”

Doña Maria Lucía remembers when, over 20 years ago, she visited the only WWB office that ex-isted then in the city of Cali, where she was given the opportunity to obtain a loan to purchase machinery, coolers and raw material with which she succeeded in developing the productive project that made her a role model in the neighborhood.

In this manner, the WWB Foundation works toward fulfilling its main goal, which is the “empowerment, rec-ognition and leadership of low-income women and their families; the results of this initiative can be clearly seen in the testimonies of the women who show us how they are transforming their lives,” said Daniela Konietzko.

On the northern coast of the country, the prepara-tion and sale of “arepa de huevo” (fried corn bread filled with egg) is another example of businesses that demon-strate the strength that comes from empowering women. 60 women from Luruaco, Atlantic, joined together five years ago to turn their daily work into an enterprise; sales increased by 16 percent on average, thus improving their family’s income and their own self-esteem.

Through the Association for “Arepa de Huevo” of Luruaco (Asopral), the members received financial and business education with the support of the Gases

del Caribe Foundation, which promotes business development as a way to help improve the quality of lives of families in the region.

This training enabled them to create as a legal entity and build a storage center that facilitates the sale of raw material for the preparation of “arepas.” However, evidence indicated that it is not enough for these women to promote economic independence if it is not supported by the need to empower them-selves as rights actors; which is where the psycho-social aspect of the project comes in. This includes participation in informational and gender awareness workshops in which the Asopral members learn about their rights and how to exercise them.

“We no longer feel repressed. At present, we are able to manage projects to benefit the association and the municipality of Luruaco” says Beatriz Castillo, representative of Asopral, in reference to other benefits derived from the Business and Psychosocial Strengthening program promoted by the FGC, the Rural Women program of the Ministry Agriculture and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

Diana Margarita Santiago, Executive Direc-tor of the Gases del Caribe Foundation, is aware that the project they are developing contributes to building a less violent country and sustainable peace. “The goal is to improve the living conditions of women producers through teaching them busi-ness and different forms of comprehensive psycho-social and community interventions in an effort to strengthen their skills and competencies in terms of quality production and thus achieve greater recogni-tion at the local, regional and national levels.”

Options for Senior CitizensIn Barranquilla, senior citizens living near the port in socioeconomically vulnerable neighborhoods such as La Chinita, El Ferry, La Luz and Villanueva also have a program that encourages them to be key players in the their communities thanks to the Port of Barran-quilla Foundation (Fundaport).

‘To be reborn: my dreams start here’ is an initia-tive that has allowed seniors in these communities to re-engage in productive, recreational and educational activities in an effort to guarantee their rights. They also participate in health clubs, psychosocial work-shops and intergenerational meetings that allow this segment of the population to be actively involved in their own lives and in their communities.

The work carried out by the Saldarriaga Con-cha Foundation in the last 40 years also focuses on developing strategies to improve opportunities for people with disabilities and the elderly. Address-ing social exclusion, empowering these segments of the population so that they can exercise their rights and obligations, and generating educational, productive and social participation opportunities are their top priorities.

For Soraya Montoya, Executive Director of the Saldarriaga Concha Foundation, this is a way to help close the socioeconomic gaps that are a source of conflict and violence, which is necessary in order to attain sustainable peace. Therefore, regardless of age, race, sex, ethnicity or capacities, the foundation aims for a form of community development that turns people into active key players and action-builders, not passive recipients of welfare.

Luis Alfredo Torres shares his testimony of the foundations work and its impact in his life. He tells of how he was one of the victims of forced displace-ment after the slaughter of El Salado (Carmen de Bolívar), which occurred in February 2000, who returned to his homeland after 11 years to write a new chapter in his story and to heal the wounds of his soul by taking charge of his destiny.

According to his account, upon returning to El Salado, he found a plowing tractor and thought it best to continue farming in the traditional way. “Al-though you sometimes say no, looking at the results you realize that agriculture and technology go hand in hand”, said Torres at72 years of age. Previously, he planted crops twice in one area and then looked for another area where he could plant because he felt that the land did not serve him well anymore. Now, with the support of the Saldarriaga Concha Foundation, he uses fertilizers and understands that preparing the land for harvest is more profitable and that the land can be reused and can yield more crops. For example, if before he harvested a ton, he now harvests three times as much. “I’ve learned that I have to combine my knowledge with that of the new generations, and if technology exists we must use it and not refuse it,” he says convinced.

For the Saldarriaga Concha Foundation, empow-ering people with disabilities and the elderly is one of the actions that generates a greater impact on the qual-ity of life of the beneficiary population, particularly in terms of the education, health and income generation.

As specified by Montoya, “through empower-ing people and teaching them about their rights and obligations, they find ways to organize themselves to make a difference, promoting their own development, becoming overseers of public resources and avoiding being manipulated by interests outside the communi-ties; in short, becoming responsible citizens.”

Moreover, this work increases its potential when the beneficiary population is comprised of senior citizens who have been victims of the armed conflict. According to a study published in November 2014 by the Saldar-riaga Concha Foundation, people over 60 years old account for 9% of the victims; and they play a key role in the return, restitution and peace building process.

The work carried out by the Saldarriaga Concha Foundation with senior citizens living in areas affected by the armed conflict has allowed them to identify what their role is in these processes, specifically on issues such as the recovery and the creation of valuing communal memory as a key component in the truth

“Only a community that is a key player in its own development will be able to build peace in its region.” Propal Foundation.

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and reparation processes, and as leaders of the com-munities regarding the transmission of knowledge, culture and tradition.

For Soraya Montoya, Director of the Saldarriaga Concha Foundation, the importance of partnering up with other peer organizations is clearly evident, given that the problems in the communities are diverse and complex and no one organization can address them.

“AFE provides a space to identify what each organization is doing to share knowledge and experi-ences and plan joint actions based on this mapping”, as stated by Montoya.

In fact, the implementation of actions through partnerships with other foundations and institutions in areas affected by the conflict has been an experi-ence that has allowed them to learn to coordinate ef-forts and to work with the government, understanding its rhythms, dynamics and processes. They have also learned to recognize the importance of being present in the region, defining priorities with the people and building trust and capacities in the community.

In an effort to reduce violence in the country, the Saldarriaga Concha Foundation considers that the following are required: the creation of strategies for the promotion of a comprehensive development of the communities, the strengthening of government institutions and work based on the definition of pub-lic policies, thus avoiding the dispersion of resources and the saturation of one specific population, and pri-oritizing the common good over institutional egos.

Early Childhood: A PriorityIn some of the most remote municipalities of the country, the part of the population that most suffers from the consequences of poverty and exclusion is the population of children. The causes are varied from the absence of social programs in peripheral loca-tions, to the ignorance of adults on the importance of this stage in one’s development.

As part of community empowerment, AFE foundations have considered that working with the adults of communities, and with government agen-cies, in order to improve the quality of life of children is essential. Strategies vary, but one of the primary components has to do with the creation of awareness of the basic needs of children.

In addition to government entities, some of AFE foundations, such as Saldarriaga Concha, Banco-lombia, Éxito, Smurfit Kappa, Caicedo González Riopaila Castilla, Restrepo Barco, Corona, Mario Santo Domingo and Carvajal, have joined in the presidential program for comprehensive early child-hood care, ‘From Zero to Always’, which represents an important partnership for guaranteeing the com-prehensive development for all children from zero to five years old in Colombia.

According to program data, the country has just over 5 million children between the ages of zero and five, with 700,000 babies being born each year, a population that should receive utmost attention as part of the social responsibility programs of the pub-lic and private sectors, with the aggravating statistic that 3 out of 4 children in a vulnerable situation do not receive comprehensive care.

There are many options for working with chil-dren 0 to 5 years of age, such as maternal health and prenatal care, child survival and child nutrition. The Éxito Foundation has focused on the latter. This institution raises awareness of the need for govern-

Working to improve early childhood is providing better opportunities for the future of communities.

ment policies that should achieve, among others, the elimination of child malnutrition in Colombia as a building block for building a better country.

As Germán Jaramillo, Executive Director of the Éxito Foundation, explains, through this strategy, the foundation invites “all citizens to join in the challenge of achieving a Zero Child Malnutrition Generation in Colombia, by 2030; under the ‘GEN ZERO’ strategy, which has already been achieved in countries such as Chile, where the new generations measure an average of 12 centimeters taller than their parents.”

This strategy is in addition to the work carried out by the foundation in the last 30 years, which has con-tributed to the comprehensive development of early childhood through nutritional interventions in schools, communities and families, resulting in 35,529 children under five and 7,627 pregnant and expecting families receiving support in 2014, particularly working with more than 200 public and private institutions.

In the same manner as the Éxito Foundation focuses its efforts on achieving the goal of the ‘Zero Malnutrition Generation’, the Alpina Foundation, in its first five years of existence, has carried out multiple projects in support of food security for children through educational, productive and social strengthening strategies.

For example, among these is a project for the pro-motion of good practices in the production, market-ing and consumption of food for nutrition and food security in the department of Cesar, with the partici-pation of 457 poor and indigenous families.

Since 2012, the Alpina Foundation has carried out a project to help improve the nutritional condition of 2,200 students and their families from eight elementary schools in Bogotá, Chía and Facatativá, through which it plans to build a food education model for school facilities that can be implemented in other schools.

This work, in addition to benefiting hundreds of families in their hometowns, has resulted in advisory and technical assistance projects for the diagnosis and formulation of food security policies in municipalities such as Facatativá and Buriticá, among others.

Thus, if, in early childhood, children receive love, education and good nutrition, they are more likely to grow in harmony within their community and greatly contribute to the construction of a peaceful country: they will be an empowered generation.

“NO” to Any Aype of ViolencePeace begins at home, and in order to achieve it every type of social violence needs to be eliminated, including domestic violence, and specifically gen-der violence, which hinder the empowerment and decision-making capacity of individuals.

This is the reason behind the initiative developed by the Carboandes Foundation: ‘Stop it already! Nothing justifies violence against women’, whose purpose is to raise awareness of the negative effects

and forms of violence against women in Valledupar”, as explained by the Carboandes directors.

In addition to giving out information in different areas of the city, the network, along with allies such as the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), German International Cooperation (or GTZ, by its German acronym), UN Women and the Program for the Development and Peace of Cesar, among others, have participated in actions to build awareness.

One of these actions was a debate on gender is-sues between the candidates for mayor of Valledupar in 2011. Awareness workshops were also organized with journalists and the Non-Violence against Wom-en and Women’s Rights days have been celebrated every November 25th and March 8th.

These activities and the political agenda on women have made an impact on the formulation of plans for departmental and municipal develop-ment and the Regional Boards of Participation. They have also served to encourage the creation of the Interagency Committee on Gender Equity in Valledupar and for the population and women themselves to understand that physical or psycho-logical violence has no justification. This, in turn, empowers all involved, especially women.

Across the world, various research studies show the close relationship between gender violence and war and highlight how this is an obstacle to peace. Therefore, the protection and prevention of any show of aggression toward women should be a priority for any country seeking to build a more peaceful society.Ph

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“In order to achieve peace, AFE foundations play a key role in empowering communities. They, therefore, promote local development.” Camilo Polanco, Executive Director of the Haciendo Equipo Foundation.

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Stronger CommunitiesAFE foundations play a decisive role when they implement support and advice programs in commu-nities that are highly vulnerable due to armed conflict situations, and they do so by empowering communi-ties to contain the violence.

In the municipalities of Morales, Cauca, those in the south of the country, in the EPSA Founda-tion and in the Fund for Strengthening Community Organizations in Cauca and Valle (FOCUS), the implementation of a project based on addressing the risk of displacement of the inhabitants and the goal of empowering them through a comprehensive strategy structured in two time phases (2004 and 2012 to 2015) has been of great importance.

EPSA, through its foundation, decided to sup-port the strengthening of community organizations by training them in management and resolution of conflicts in order for them to be able to find solu-tions to various problems.

Luz Maria Gallo, Executive Director of the foun-dation, states that the commitment of the EPSA Foun-dation is based on the promotion of local development through strengthening the capacities of the communi-ties in the areas of influence, that is, in municipalities where EPSA’s hydroelectric stations, as well as their distribution and marketing areas, are located.

“Poor populations, indigenous peoples, and Afro-descendant families belonging to the first, second and third socioeconomic stratums (measured out of 6 stra-tums in total) live in these areas; they are faced with great difficulties in their attempts to getting a better quality of life, and they must live with the different manifestations of violence in their territories such as: threats, harassment, forced displacement and confine-ment, among others, due to the historical presence of various illegal armed groups in their area, “as stated by the director of the foundation.

In an effort to address this complex environment, the EPSA Foundation works two lines of action: education and local economic development. In the first, efforts are directed toward supporting primary and secondary education with a special emphasis on strengthening and improving the quality of education.

The first phase of the empowerment process priori-tized the strengthening of grassroots populations in the departments of Valle, Cauca and Nariño. The founda-tion invested in community organizations in order to as-sist them in defining their needs and in seeking alterna-tives and solutions to specific problems they had.

This type of intervention promotes the development of skills and abilities in order to build environments con-ducive to healthy living and, therefore, to non-violence. Likewise, it contributes to the recovery of school infra-structure to serve the community, thus allowing children and young people to have access to education.

In the second phase of the program, which is un-der execution, the EPSA Foundation aims to integrate grassroots development to local development in four areas of Valle and Cauca, including Morales. In these regions, new players, such as the various government agencies and private companies, are working with grassroots organizations in the management and plan-ning of initiatives with a broader territorial impact.

Jorge Eduardo Forero, head of the Entrepre-neurship and Strengthening division at the EPSA Foundation, says that local development is a strategy that combines organizational processes and collective action with processes for the creation of meanings and representations (local culture), social networks, and democratic and social inclusion policies, capacity building in social responsibility and productive man-agement. “It is a process that empowers the commu-nity through the promotion of economic, social, and environmental development.”

The FOCUS initiative is led by the consortium of EPSA, Smurfit Kappa Colombia and Corona founda-tions, which manages the resources provided by the

Inter American Foundation. Their partners include the National Coffee Growers Federation, the Depart-ment for Social Prosperity (DPS) and the various municipal administrations, among others.

The Carvajal Foundation is carrying out a similar project for inclusion and empowerment in the Dis-trict of Aguablanca, through the Basic Community Services Centers located in the Comuna 18 and San Fernando, which were created as the starting point of a local and collective development process to improve the quality of life and access to basic community ser-vices for families living in vulnerable conditions.

Roberto Pizarro, Former President of the Carvajal Foundation, says that, since its inception, the founda-tion has been committed to the promotion of social inclusion in marginal urban areas through social initia-tives with an emphasis on income generation, educa-tion, culture, housing and the environment, supported by a strategy of social and community support.

The difference is that, in the beginning, the initiatives were part of a welfare-based project and were limited to meeting the immediate basic needs of the poorest population, while today, aside from that, they seek the empowerment of beneficiaries through various programs.

The foundation defines the Centers as ‘centers for development’ where people can find different services that vary based on location as well as the cost of food, building materials, fabrics, school supplies and medi-cations that can be purchased.

This initiative integrates strategic partners both public and private along with grassroots organizations that provide labor. It is an exercise in citizen partici-pation; the inhabitants already see the centers as their own, thus creating an area of social cohesion neces-sary to building peace.

In addition, thanks to the work by the Carvajal Family, 192 community leaders are participating in the Leadership School, while 11 community action boards are receiving support in institutional strength-ening for the implementation and construction of projects; both processes favor the empowerment of the people regarding the present and the future of the area in which they live.

Meanwhile, the city of Buenaventura, the largest port on the Pacific coast of Colombia, with 80 per-cent of its population living in conditions of vulner-ability and half of them destitute, is also the scene of a comprehensive community development strategy driven by the Fabio Grisales Bejarano Buenaventura Port Society Foundation.

Andres Ramírez, the social manager of the foun-dation, has shared that the most important achieve-ment is “the empowerment of communities through leadership tools and citizen coexistence in order to ensure sustainability through its own efforts.”

The Community Development mission area be-comes more important in a town like this, which faces issues like drug trafficking, the presence of criminal gangs, alarming numbers of murders and forced displacement, among many other issues.

“Building an identity and sense of belonging has become the guiding principle behind the fight against

Working towards empowerment is vital. The greatest impact is to prepare inhabitants to be more active and ones who participate in the political development and decision-making in their region”: Otto Vergara, Cerrejón Foundation, Guajira province.

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“Foundations build with and for the communities in an effort to achieve true social transformations. ” Maria del Pilar Gómez Duncan, Executive Director of the Port of Cartagena Foundation.

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these issues. The road is just beginning to be drawn up with the participation of the communities, and we hope that this collective process results in relation-ships that enable a more inclusive coexistence and the emergence of new leaders to negotiate and promote opportunities for solving these conflicts, “as indicated by the directors of the Fabio Grisales Bejarano Bue-naventura Port Society Foundation.

Housing – A Pillar in the Quality of LivingAccording to the Ministry of Housing, DANE and the National Planning Department, 2.5 million people in Colombia are affected by the housing defi-cit, an indicator that includes both families without a home and those who have a home with some sort of deficiency, such as the lack of utilities.

Because of this, decent housing has become an issue of major interest to both the national government and AFE foundations, which develop significant efforts to address a problem that, in addition to infringing on a constitutional right of the population, prevents the development of families in a community setting. This is a difficulty that deeply affects a country that, as a result of an armed conflict, has seen hundreds of people forcibly displaced from their homes and lands.

The improvement of housing conditions not only benefits a family or a group of individuals; it has been shown that home ownership itself cre-ates the conditions for citizens to enhance their

relationship with their immediate environment and invest in the development of a favorable environ-ment for the whole community.

Because of the need to provide housing for the inhabitants of Urabá, who work primarily for the banana companies, the Banacol Corbanacol Social Foundation was born. “This happened over twenty years ago when the people in the area lived in ‘cambu-ches’ (tin huts) and when there was no infrastructure,” said Juan Felipe Laverde, Manager of the foundation.

Corbanacol considers that housing is the most important space in which family ties are developed and strengthened, healthy relationships are consolidated and lifestyle habits are formed for living in the commu-nity. To this end, the foundation has participated in the creation of more than 6,000 housing solutions through the construction of seven housing developments in five Colombian municipalities, and also through the improvement and legalization of land.

As the Director of the Foundation emphasizes, “historically, social problems are generated due to inequality, lack of opportunities and any unmet housing, health, training and education needs of the population;” which is why Corbanacol has focused its work according to this premise, seeking to offer appropriate solutions to the needs of the populations through continuous support.

Using a model that portrays housing as a compre-hensive solution for the creation of spaces for coexis-tence and social development, the Empresa Privada Compartir Foundation has contributed to solving the problem of housing shortages in the country.

Starting in1980 and continuing up until the end of 2014, the foundation has donated a total of 37,493 homes, through which the quality of life of vulner-

able populations and lower socio-economic families has been improved. These include mostly social inter-est houses, which comprise of a community compo-nent with comprehensive additional services.

In addition to donating the houses, the Compar-tir Foundation promotes the ability to “be supportive and work collaboratively, organizing the community and promoting training in the administration of com-munity property” by “offering beneficiaries and their families social support, which seeks to open spaces for dialogue and consultation, support community deci-sions, and resolve concerns and problems in an effort to continually improve their quality of life,” as stated in the definition of the program.

Since 2007, the Mario Santo Domingo Founda-tion has carried out a similar project through which it has decided to create sustainable communities through macro-housing projects in the cities of Bar-ranquilla and Cartagena, with a potential to improve the quality of living of more than 40,000 families.

“In terms of reducing violence, the foundation has a comprehensive community approach to the macro-housing projects which is, from our perspec-tive, the way in which we can best contribute to a peaceful country,” as emphasized by Juan Carlos Franco, the foundation’s CEO.

In this sense, Franco explains how “the founda-tion had decided to bet on the consolidation of the community rather than on the donation of priority social interest houses per se”, therefore the Founda-tion implements a solid project which emphasizes values and coexistence strategies, for these projects tend to group people of different socio-economic lev-els and contexts together, including victims of forced displacement and demobilized combatants.

Thus, going beyond to the mere construction of houses, represents a real opportunity for empower-ment, as it seeks to build a sustainable, socially co-hesive community, integrated into local markets and active institutional offers for which the Mario Santo Domingo Foundation generates community manage-ment processes, such as community action boards and community councils, in which the inhabitants formulate their development plans.

Strong institutions need to be added to the housing strategy, says Juan Carlos Franco. He specifies how, “truthfully, in order for large-scale housing projects not to become ghettos, the government must be fully pres-ent so that these plans can actually get implemented.”

Another example of this process is the project for the reconstruction of El Salado, developed by the Carvajal Foundation, where the partnership al-lowed for the construction of 100 houses for the in-habitants of this region of Montes de Maria, under the Urbanización Los Sueños project.

In addition to building houses, the Carvajal Foundation seeks to strengthen community partici-pation as the core of the comprehensive develop-

ment of this district where different infrastructure projects for reconstruction operate.

The work carried out by AFE foundations to improve, through decent housing, the quality of life of communities in different regions of the country has demonstrated that appropriate urban development and housing construction alone does not guarantee the wel-fare of the families. Because of this, through AFE, its member foundations have defined key factors that need to be included in these projects, such as prior support, the existence of minimum conditions for healthy living and the analysis and planning of the socio-economic environment of the sector where the houses are built.

Getting the community to be a key player in its own development, allowing it to be recognized as a social actor and propelling it to dream what it wants for its future, and that it has the citizenship capacity to build such a future, has been one of the challenges faced by AFE foundations, which, as Soraya Mon-toya, Executive Director of the Saldarriaga Concha Foundation, states, needs to “work toward community development, by making people own their actions and not be passive recipients, having their own aware-ness of the existence of their rights and obligations. “

Motivating participation, building a solid social fabric, cultivating a sense of belonging and offering training in management skills are some of the strate-gies needed for empowerment. Projects in education and income generation come next, which give every citizen the power to take charge of his or her individ-ual progress as well as that of the community.

“Encouraging the capacity-building of individuals and communities is the basis for overcoming violence generated by inequality.” Corona Foundation. Ph

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LEAD GENERATION AND INCOME

Financial education, job training, technical assistance for productive projects and access to credit are some of the strategies promoted by AFE foundations to promote economic growth, welfare and quality of life in the communities.

cycle in which the lack of opportunities, adequate training, resources and access to the financial system prevents them from increasing their productive proj-ects and their ability to save and invest in progress.

It is in this scenario in which AFE foundations have played, and continue playing, a key role in sup-porting economic empowerment and contributing to the improvement in the quality of life of Colombians.

An Open Door to Credit ServicesAlthough the level of access to banking services in Colombia is growing and 72.5 percent of the adult population now has a bank account, as quoted by the Financial Inclusion Report published by Asobancaria as of December 2014, access to credit and resources

GENERATING

for financing projects are still obstacles for the country’s most vulnerable population, as evidenced by the study of access to credit assessment conducted in 2012 by the Alpina Foundation in the rural communities of Cauca.

It is precisely in this context, where it is almost impossible to obtain resources from the banking system, that the Corona Foundation, in partnership with the Antonio Restrepo Barco, Alpina, Caicedo González Riopaila Castilla, Carvajal, Smurfit Kappa Colombia, Hogares Juveniles Campesinos, Escuela para la Vida, Samaritanos de la Calle, Ser Gente, SIDOC, Cedecur and Fundefir foundations, leads a program to “enhance culture and access to alterna-tive financial services for populations in conditions of poverty and with no access to banking services”.

The existence of equal opportunities is essen-tial in overcoming the challenge of reducing inequal-ity and social injustice, circumstances which, if left unaddressed, generate core obstacles in the process of building sustainable and lasting peace.

One of the tools needed for individuals to till their own destiny is the creation of opportunities and income for individual and communal social development. Of course, economic growth is not an end in itself, for the accumulation of wealth with-out direction does not guarantee the welfare of a community, but it is a vehicle through which a better quality of life can be achieved.

In vulnerable communities, AFE foundation-shave discovered that people get stuck in a vicious

OPPORTUNITIES AND REVENUES, A STIMULUS FOR SOCIAL PROSPERITY

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This project is called ‘Bankomunales’ and, according to Angela Escallón Emiliani, Executive Director of the Corona Foundation, its goal is for its beneficiaries to “not only have access to credit but also to savings and profit through the capitalization of their shares.” It addresses community organizations that partner up to provide financial services for each other, an operation in which AFE foundations play a key role due to their transferring and monitoring of this model in the communities to ensure success.

This project also represents an opportunity to access capital; it seeks to encourage the exercise of economic citizenship, which “focuses on overcoming the financial literacy of poor communities, creating alternative ways for micro-financing projects and of-fering methods for secure savings and investments.”

‘Bankomunales’ came to life in November of 2011, and to date has coverage in municipalities

numbers and management, and a commitment to credit into their day-to-day operations.

For the IC Foundation’s CEO, their strategy revolves around a theory of change based on providing access to capital for associative business projects that can generate a scalable economic value, which, as a result, provides greater social development in their environment.

This work with productive projects is carried out in areas affected by the armed conflict. They will be highly significant during the post-conflict stage, which is present in regions such as Cauca, Caqueta, Bajo Cauca Antioqueño and Santander. “In these areas, peace may be sustainable if we increase the inclusion of vulnerable populations in the systems that generate growth, such as political participation, social services and access to credit, enabling these citizens to lever-age their own growth,” as stated by Jose Andres Diaz.

Thus, for the IC Foundation management team, this foundation is committed to supporting business projects that have originated from vulnerable popu-lations, in order to generate sustainable sources of income in remote communities. “In this manner, by strengthening partnerships with other foundations and institutions in the public and private sector, we will achieve sustainable peace for the country,” says Diaz.

Moreover, in rural areas of Atlántico and Bolívar, where the gaps between the urban and rural areas of the region are significant, regarding issues as vital as access to education, health and public services, the Mario Santo Domingo Foundation facilitates access to credit and financial services in order to generate

access to resources for low income families. This work is carried out through the ‘Microfinance Unit, I can prosper’ program, which is oriented through generat-ing access to banking services and providing technical advice and / or working capital loans.

As of June 2013, the program had granted cred-its to 4,700 small businesses in the amount of 8.287 million pesos and 610 home loans in the amount of 6.071 million pesos. The participation of women was 71.80 and 74.75 percent respectively. Addition-ally, 85 percent of the beneficiaries were Sisbén level 1 and 2 (TN Sisbén is an instrument that identifies poor and vulnerable households, families or indi-viduals. It is the Colombian information system for identifying potential beneficiaries for social programs from the general population- Selection System for Beneficiaries of Social Programs).

“I wanted to fulfill my dream of setting up a shop, a furniture business, and I did,” said Luis Orozco, cabinet maker and one of the entrepreneurs who have managed to develop their entrepreneurial potential. The aim is for people like Don Luis, who mostly live from their informal businesses, to be able to use these credits to build up their own companies or to have access to homeownership.

in the departments of Atlantico, Caldas, Quindío, Risaralda, Nariño, Cauca, Valle del Cauca, Cun-dinamarca, Antioquia, Cordoba and the city of Bogotá. As a community bank, its main beneficiaries are farmers, small businesses and single mothers who have almost no education and receive incomes below the minimum wage.

Access to resources also affects individuals or groups seeking to create new businesses. In Colombia, although the state has improved the flow of financing within the last year and a half to more than 140,000 million through the BANCOLDEX Innpulsa pro-gram, this is still the weakest link in the chain.

This situation is described in the study ‘Escalat-ing Entrepreneurship’, conducted by the University of the Andes, which analyzes the base companies registered with the Superintendency of Companies between the years 2000 and 2010. The main result of the investigation shows that, in this period, only 284 companies in Colombia had the necessary character-istics to be high-impact entrepreneurial organizations.

The IC Foundation implements actions to improve these indicators by supporting entrepreneurial lead-ers and associations in vulnerable communities whose productive initiatives are already operating, but lack access to traditional lines of credit and require working capital to expand their businesses or buy supplies.

Currently, the IC Foundation is supporting 11 cluster business projects in the departments of Cauca, Santander, Boyacá, Antioquia, Caquetá, and the city of Bogotá, which directly impacts the qual-ity of life of 3,000 families. In recent years, the orga-nization has given more than 1,000 million pesos in loans through a project that has been developed in partnership with the Saldarriaga Concha Founda-tion, the Smurfit Kappa Colombia Foundation and the Mineros Foundation.

According to Jose Andres Diaz, CEO of the IC Foundation, this revenue generation project is also an opportunity for community empowerment. He states how “we support associations or organiza-tions that demonstrate resilience and the ability to generate positive changes in their region, not only in terms of their business models but through the com-mitment to create a positive social impact for their partners and their community.”

Although final results are not yet available, lead-ers have included business criteria, concern for the

“We contribute to the peace building process through the creation of opportunities in hopes that those who are holding a weapon today will be able to hold a pen and a calculator tomorrow.” Coomeva Foundation.

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“We must be willing to allot resources for investment, as long and wide as necessary, to recover social capital.” IC Foundation.

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The entrepreneurs also receive leadership train-ing, as well as training in legal issues, teamwork and corporate image in an effort to help them better position themselves in the market. Between 2012 and 2013, more than 7,500 people received support.

The Microfinance Unit has become an enhancer for the sustainability of the communities where it operates thanks to the partnership between public and private institutions such as the NGO Kiva, the Department for Social Prosperity (DPS), SENA and the Victims Unit, among others.

Juan Carlos Franco, General Director of the Mario Santo Domingo Foundation, explains that the commitment to building sustainable peace is evident in their contributions to the formaliza-tion of the microenterprise, the education grants program and, since 2007, to the comprehensive development of sustainable communities in hous-ing macro projects in Barranquilla and Cartagena, which benefit 40,000 families.

These examples demonstrate how, by facilitating access to resources in the financial sector, it is pos-sible to generate positive social mobility among the most vulnerable communities. Thanks to the Mario Domingo Foundation, financial education and credits have been granted to citizens who, due to their credit

tive and technical assistance costs, which were previ-ously covered by Oxfam and the Alpina Foundation.”

In the same vein of building productive capacity from the sectorial organizations, the Alpina Founda-tion has implemented initiatives in the Wayuu com-munities in the Upper and Middle Guajira, and with the producers and distributors of raw milk in Bogotá and Popayan, along with other regions.

This means that, beyond delivering resources, AFE foundations play an essential role in accompany-ing the processes of emergence and consolidation of productive projects through the transfer of knowl-edge, which responds to two difficulties faced by the vulnerable population: the inability to have access to credit and a lack of technical assistance to improve the results of the operation.

In line with this experience, the Banacol-Cor-banacol Social Foundation supports small banana producers in Urabá through the use of tools for busi-ness development, the creation and strengthening of cooperatives and the certification of processes.

This project has had a significant impact on the competitiveness and productivity of banana farmers in the region, who have suffered directly or indirectly from the ravages of war and violence, which have af-fected this area of the country for many years.

history or the informality of their income, would not have been able to gain access to banks otherwise.

Encouraging Productive ProjectsThe department of Cauca is overwhelmed by the lack of resources for its inhabitants. Although the Mon-etary Poverty Report of 2014, published by DANE, indicated an improvement at the national level, the numbers indicated that this department is more vul-nerable than the rest of the country.

Faced with the inequity that exists among a high incidence of illegal actors, there are foundations of-fering self-support options to the communities in this department. This is the case of the Alpina Founda-tion, which implemented a significant change in the social, economic and organizational development of 189 small milk producers.

This initiative, which began in 2009, provides these producers with support and technical assistance in an effort to increase their production and their income and implement environmentally friendly practices and promote food security in their regions.

Eduardo Diaz Uribe, Executive Director of the Alpina Foundation until August 2015, highlights that these organizations “in a progressive and self-managed manner, are taking on the funding for their administra-

In the words of Juan Felipe Laverde, the manager of the Banacol-Corbanacol Social Foundation, “the banana farming model is an inclusive business model, in which 60 percent of the banana farmers are demo-bilized or displaced individuals who are now exporting their products. They are entrepreneurs who are now fighting for their children to live in a war-free country. This is a clear example that it is possible to make a transformation in the face of the post-conflict .”

As part of the social responsibility mission carried out by the Banacol-Corbanacol Social Foundation, support is also offered for research projects in different municipalities in the region of Urabá, linked to the use of new technologies to improve productivity. Some, for example, assess the nutritional limitations in banana pro-duction, while others are pilot plans for planting under certain conditions, demonstrating a clear commitment to knowledge management for the productive sector.

For its part, the Coomeva Foundation also found, within the framework of action of its parent com-pany, a specific population group that required this support. This population includes young people, university students, technicians and technologists who need a primary boost to generate enterprises and business models, not only in terms of resources, but also in terms of advice and technical assistance.Ph

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“Simply put, I always explain that a business-man will not go bankrupt because he doesn’t know how make arepas, but because he doesn’t know everything else that is involved in keeping a busi-ness afloat, namely financial, distribution and brand management. This is where the Coomeva Founda-tion comes in, helping the venture of these entrepre-neurs become viable, “says José Fernando Iragorri, former director of the Coomeva Foundation.

Therefore, the first step is to motivate young people to create a company in order to later support them in the evaluation of the business model and whether it is viable, taking them to a funding stage through a credit line for entrepreneurship. After that, each initiative will continue being monitored in order

All of the initiatives of AFE foundations that work toward strengthening small business projects are based on an assumption that is reflected in the words of Diana Margarita Santiago, Executive Director of the Gases del Caribe Foundation, for whom “a way to contribute to the sustainability of peace in the coun-try is by supporting the construction of local develop-ment through providing opportunities that enable people to improve their living conditions.”

The Gases del Caribe Foundation develops proj-ects to strengthen the productive capacity of associa-tions and small businesses through a comprehensive intervention that helps them become sustainable social organizations.

These actions offer entrepreneurial, produc-tive and commercial technical assistance in order to help these organizations become solid, with an emphasis on improving skills, productivity, com-petitiveness and market integration through the various production projects.

An example of this is the Arts & Weaving project (Arte & Tejido), which is supported by the Artisan As-sociation of Chorrera, whose goal is to boost handi-craft production at a national level as a means of gen-erating income and improving the living conditions of the beneficiaries. 36 women who act as heads of their households participate in this project; they received training and advice and, thanks to the sale of these handmade products, improve their quality of life.

Promoting Innovation and EntrepreneurshipFactors such as lack of funding and social prejudices do not allow entrepreneurship to grow in the coun-try. In an effort to break this trend, the Bancolombia Foundation focuses on ensuring the sustainability of new family-owned companies, helping them set up the organization and create jobs.

According to Catalina Echavarria Ramirez, Executive Director of the foundation, “our commit-ment is to accompany the human life cycle. In that sense, the venture allows young people and adults to generate income either through becoming company employees or entrepreneurs. “

Through this initiative, which has more than 400 direct and 600 indirect beneficiaries, the foundation seeks to support people with entrepreneurial initia-tives living in complex economic environments but that still offer development opportunities based on innovative ideas and the desire to succeed.

The foundation supports the beneficiaries from three standpoints: social, financial and commercial,

to minimize the risk of the company disappearing and ensuring its sustainability in the long-term.

More than 3,000 companies have been created with the assistance of the Coomeva Foundation, creating 17,500 jobs in different cities. This number later increased by another 6,000 businesses that came looking for help after having started their operations.

“Our contribution to peace is based in generat-ing revenue. Through the businesses that we sup-port, we are creating new jobs and contributing to economic development, “says the Executive Director of the Coomeva Foundation.

As José Fernando Iragorri, former director of the Coomeva Foundation explains, the group aims to cre-ate at least one new company each day. In 2014, the challenge was for 400 projects to enter the market, which he considers is a significant effort that creates new jobs that can benefit hundreds of Colombians.

Iragorri concludes that “the most important manner in which we contribute to the peace building process is through the creation of opportunities in hopes that those who are holding a weapon today will be able to hold a pen and a calculator tomorrow. In the post-conflict process, our support will be essential in the process successfully integrating victims and ag-gressors through the creation of businesses and jobs.”

By encouraging productive projects,

AFE foundations contribute to local

development in the poorest regions.

“By contributing to the sustainability of peace, we support the construction of local development by offering opportunities that allow people to improve their living conditions.” Gases del Caribe Foundation.

“We are decidedly in favor of peace, but not just a transitory peace, but a long and sustainable peace for future generations. A common agenda is required to end the period of violence, to build a better, more inclusive and fair country for all of us.” Bancolombia Foundation.

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which, according to the foundation, should help to ensure the sustainability of the businesses.

The following are some of the main goals achieved through this program: the creation of part-nerships with entities devoted to promoting entrepre-neurship, formalization and access to banking services and actions that ensure the sustainability and profit-ability of the business.

Another example of support and assistance offered to this segment of the population is the one being carried out by the Bavaria Foundation, which bets on the most innovative entrepreneurs, those who show the greatest sustainable growth potential in the country. Through the ‘Uncap the Future’ program, it provides virtual classroom training and mentoring as well as seed capital and funding.

This plan has national coverage and began in 2006. As of 2014, 65,500 entrepreneurs have been summoned to present their proposals. Of these 65,500, 4,000 have been trained and 380 have received seed capital amounting to US $10.8 million, thus contribut-ing to the creation of over 6,000 new jobs.

According to its directors, the Bavaria Foundation is committed to creating shared value; “we understand that equity and creating opportunities for all, particu-larly for the most vulnerable communities, is the best

way to generate economic and social development and move towards durable and sustainable peace.”

In order to create these conditions for peace at local and national levels, shared actions that generate greater social opportunities need to be developed around the value chain of companies and their foundations.

“When AFE foundations define a priority guide-line, such as education, nutrition, entrepreneurship and building capacities and skills in young people, among others, they are essentially contributing to the creation of conditions for peace,” as stated by the directors of the Bavaria Foundation.

The Bolívar Davivienda Foundation finds that, “dynamic entrepreneurship and high growth potential are effective tools in order to generate effective social and economic development in the country, as this will generate higher-paying jobs and a culture based on merit and effort where innovation is encouraged and where some low-growth industries are invigorated.”

In this regard, it promotes a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship through training opportunities in different regions of the country, for which it allot-ted 182 million pesos in 2014. In addition, through the program ‘Emprende País (Venture forward),’ it offers a technical assistance platform to promote inno-vative ideas and businesses through counseling, train-ing and mentoring in an effort to generate sustainable growth strategies, constitute company boards that generate value, or set up presentations to investors.

By the end of the year 2014, this program yielded 199 interviewed entrepreneurs: 144 in training, 53 in mentoring, 21 preparing presentations to investors and 15 working with the advisory committee.

For Fernando Cortés McAllister, Executive Director of the Bolívar Davivienda Foundation, this program “is a reflection of how AFE foundationsare leading and be-coming benchmarks through high-impact initiatives that help build a more just, equitable and innovative society.”

Supporting regional entrepreneurship through a business mentoring program is also one of the strategies implemented by the Proantioquia Founda-tion in an effort to contribute to economic and social development in the department of Antioquia. This foundation used a methodology based on the “coor-dination of the mobilization of technical and business skills to support enterprise systems, competitiveness of the region and international cooperation.”

According to the foundation’s directors, in addition to the strategic work performed by influencing in vari-ous scenarios for discussion and public policy proposals in which the president of Proantioquia participates, the competitiveness of the department is an essential issue for addressing equity and peace building issues.

Decent Employment as an Element for Building PeaceThe ancient Chinese proverb, “Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and

you will feed him for a lifetime,” fits very well into the work done by AFE foundations. In order to achieve this goal, they have focused their efforts on providing training to young people to enable them to access the labor market and use their knowledge to work in an area that will generate revenues and thus help them achieve social mobility.

The Gases de Occidente Foundation has focused its efforts on supporting youth in vulnerable condi-tions using training as the main axis for their ‘Pací-fico y Cauca Joven (Young Pacific and Cauca’ and ‘Alianza Don Bosco-Cocina Para Todos (Don Bosco Partnership – Cooking for All)’ programs.

The first aims to improve youth employability and entrepreneurship indicators through training in areas relevant to the region, such as foreign trade technicians, forklift operators and other jobs in the mechanical indus-try, and strengthening grassroots organizations.

The program began in 2011 with the support of strategic partners such as the Swissaid and Propal Foundations, the Department for Social Prosperity (DPS) and the SENA. It takes place in municipalities of Valle del Cauca and Cauca, and specifically Buenaven-tura, Puerto Tejada, Guachené, Villa Rica and Padilla.

According to Melba Guadalupe Pinedo, Execu-tive Director of the Gases de Occidente Foundation, “investing in projects, such as impact assessment stud-ies, shows us that there is a significant social return.”

The partnership between the Don Bosco Center and SENA offers comprehensive training in gastron-omy to young people living in vulnerable conditions that pertaining to the first and second socio economic

levels. The idea is to train them in cooking and facili-tate their entry into the job market in Cali.

The project, created in 2008, has had a good response from the hospitality industry; training young people as cooking technicians facilitated their entry into the labor market to the point that the employabil-ity indicator for this population reached 98 percent.

Located in the same region, the Smurfit Kappa Colombia Foundation completed 53 years of dedica-tion in forging the future of young people in rural sectors through building capacities and skills in the hopes that they have more and better economic and social opportunities. This work is carried out by the Agricultural and Forestry Technical Institutes (ITAF), created in the municipalities of Cajibío, El Tambo in Cauca and Darien in Valle del Cauca.

The ITAFs follow a pedagogical model that helps develop job skills and awaken the entrepreneurial spirit of young individuals living in poor areas. Stu-dents go to elementary school and a technical middle school which emphasize training in agriculture and forestry in an effort to ensure that students remain in school, specifically in rural areas with high rates of violence. In addition to academic preparation, the institutes provide resources to students who wish to begin productive projects from school and thus have the ability to generate income in the communities.

In seventh grade, students have the possibility to access a loan for the creation of a small business, granted by the ITAF, with the participation of students, parents and teachers. The loans are awarded based on regulations prepared by the students. “The project is

To create conditions for peace in the

regions, AFE foundations promote trade and capability training that enables

communities to find alternatives

to improve their quality of life.

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the responsibility of the student who receives the loan with the approval of his or her parents. However, it becomes a family project because parents and siblings assume responsibility during their stay in the school, “explains Beatriz Mejia, Executive Director of the Smurfit Kappa Colombia Foundation.

Likewise, Mejia highlights that the work done with the ITAFs is aligned with the company’s vision to participate in the continuous improvement of the communities in the area of influence of the company Its goal is to be “a leader in sustainable development” and “contribute to building a more just society where there is freedom for all.”

According to the Executive Director of the Foundation, the project “has contributed to human development and to reducing poverty by improving the access to and quality of education for youth living in poor communities in the area of influence of the Smurfit Kappa Colombia forestry project.”

While the young people living in rural commu-nities and peripheral municipalities have less access to technical and higher education, in the capital cities, there are also many young people who ex-pect the opportunity to have access to job training and to finding stable employment.

In Bogotá,, the main line of work of the Chevrolet Foundation is the promotion of income generation op-portunities. However, as Sandra Romero, Foundation Program Supervisor, says, “these should not be under-stood solely as productive projects and small businesses because, from our perspective, the population of young people contains the highest level of unemployment and is urgently in need of training in areas that will help these individuals find a decent job.”

In this regard, they have developed the ‘Motor Covenant ‘ program, with strategic partners such as the District’s Department for Economic Develop-ment, the Neme Foundation, the Salesian Society and 13 private sector companies, which seeks to create employment opportunities for low income young adults in the automotive and transportation chain.

To date, the pilot plan, which began in October 2011, has helped more than 500 youths by offering them guidance and relevant and quality technical training, psychosocial support and job placement in areas of specialty required by the automotive sector. The beneficiaries are mainly people from the towns of Usme, Bosa, Tunjuelito and Ciudad Bolivar, some of the poorest in the capital. In addi-tion, the foundation plans to replicate the program in Medellín and Cali.

Of the total number of people who partici-pated in the program, more than two thirds are currently working in the companies where they performed their internships. 80 percent of member companies recognize the benefits of the project since it saves them time and resources in the re-cruitment process for the required posts.

According to Sandra Romero, a member of the Chevrolet Foundation team, the ‘Motor Covenant’ aims to bring the private sector (in this case, the automotive industry and related services) closer to the social priorities of the country, opening up opportuni-ties for vulnerable populations to generate income. This represents a contribution to one of the root causes of the conflict, which is the lack of opportuni-ties, therefore “the greatest contribution is to take young people off the street, to guide them into the work place and to improve their job skills and their capacities as human beings and citizens.”

“We understand peace building as a process in which bridges need to be built between those who can provide the opportunities and those who need them,” Romero says. This challenge requires that projects focus on the social inclusion of those citizens who, due to the lack of opportunities, are excluded from political, social and economic systems.

This population also includes victims and aggres-sors and people directly related to the armed conflict, which in the post-conflict scenario will eventually need the work done by institutions such as the Chev-rolet Foundation, who are responsible for bringing together the different sectors of society, an issue with which the foundation is already moving forward through the use of pilot projects.

Trade Schools: Training for LifeFollowing the line of Community Generation Ca-pacities, the Mayagüez Foundation set up a trade school funded by the biofuel sugar mill, which seeks

to strengthen productive units by improving the skills and abilities of individuals involved in non-formal training in the areas of influence of the company.

Food, clothing, hair and beauty, among other focuses, are some of the trades in which students are trained in an effort to give them an option to gener-ate family income. In 2014, a total of 1,501 people benefited from this outstanding community program.

Julian Cardona, Director of the Mayagüez Foun-dation, states that the institution is convinced that edu-cation provides welfare because those who have been given an education have the chance to advance socially, improve their quality of life and be more productive.

The trade program ultimately aims to encour-age people to develop their own business projects, as in the case of Maria Luz Dary Fajardo, one of the beneficiaries of the Mayagüez Foundation who specializes in floral arrangements. According to her testimony, which was collected by the institution, she stated that “this has been a type of survival training, because what little I knew I have formalized. Now I have my business and I understand the cost issues, which is something one often does not understand. “

“We are convinced that education is the way for a country to become more prosperous, equitable and fair,” says Cardona after explaining the reasons that drive the foundation to continue to direct efforts and social investment in projects related to access and quality education.

Through these investments, in the short-term, they are looking for young people to develop skills and competencies that help them prepare themselves to face the working world. In the long-term, the foun-dation hopes that those same young people become leaders in the local development processes in the com-munities in which they live.

The Ernesto Mejia Amaya Foundation also focuses on training the vulnerable population, particularly those who have been demobilized and displaced, and young people in the process of rehabilitation. The challenge lies in ensuring their access to the labor market for which they are focus-ing on training in four areas: clothing, mechanical, electrical and IT.

The organization, which has been recognized by the Ministry of Education of Cali, provides a certifi-cation in technical work to those who participate in their training programs, thus ensuring a formal edu-cation, which will help particiants find employment.

“The most important aspect for the Ernesto Mejia Amaya Foundation is to ensure that there is a change in the life of their beneficiaries. To mediate the effectiveness, we have developed an employment or knowledge application statistic, which indicates a 60 percent favorable impact; this means that our training helps transform their lives, “explains Jorge Ivan Varela, Executive Director of the foundation.

According to Varela, the work carried out by the foundation is directly related to the peace building process, which is where the victims and aggressors are already receiving training in skilled labor as part of their reintegration processes, with the promise to generate enough impact to ensure they find work.

“AFE foundations act as a bridge between companies, the public sector, civil society organizations and the population, to which the initiatives are directed.” Chevrolet Foundation.

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The director explains that, “Although the govern-ment should be the one encouraging these inclusion mechanisms, when it does not occur, AFE founda-tionscan contribute to this process, especially in rural populations. The challenge for these institutions is to enable those who do not want to return to their places of origin to be included in the city’s economic market.”

The Carvajal Foundation is another organization that is investing in opportunities and income genera-tion from a comprehensive trade training standpoint. In order to do this, it created the ‘Center for Produc-tive Development’ project in the city of Cali and other municipalities in the department of Valle del Cauca, where young people and adults living in vul-nerable communities receive technical and manage-rial skills, entrepreneurship and labor training, as well as an approach to human development issues.

The project was born in 2005 in the district of Aguablanca and, according to the program’s defini-tion, it was founded “in an effort to contribute to the improvement of the capacity to generate income and employment in the small food business sector.” It later increased its scope to include other trades, such as electricity, clothing, aluminum carpentry, welding, IT and IT services, among others.

This project was developed in partnership with other institutions such as the SENA and the Lim-mat Foundation, through which it has been pos-sible to expand coverage. During 2014, the income generation program supported 758 individuals in

strengthening their businesses and training for work in Cali and Buenaventura.

For Roberto Pizarro, Former President of the Carvajal Foundation, it is clear that such strategies “allow beneficiary families to operate in a more favorable environment, promoting the development of life and work-related skills and helping them have access to better opportunities and especially to the capacity to generate income.”

The Propal Foundation has also worked on income generation through education based on the conviction that “a community, which is a key player in its own development process and which has these minimum resources, will be able to build peace.”

Eduardo Posada Corpas, Executive Director of the Propal Foundation, explains that, in the area of educa-tion, the foundation provides training options for healthy work habits and more productive and safe uses of leisure time for children and youths. “It’s a way to keep the population away from violence while preparing them for their future work and professional activities.”

In one of the Propal Foundation venues, located in the municipality of Guachené (Cauca), they con-tinue offering technical and technological careers in conjunction with the SENA’s Cauca branch. These careers, which include business management, provide students with job skills related to productive work and contribute to the reformulation of their life projects as well as facilitating their individual, family and social development processes.

In the same vein, the Fanalca Foundation has a line of action oriented towards training, which follows the premise that it is possible to achieve change in the quality of life of individuals and, therefore, in the communities through job training, enhancing skills and providing opportunities for young people and women to increase their income.

Thanks to having received training in bakeries, bars and table techniques, national and international cuisine, jewelry selling and making and IT work, along with other focuses, 124 people have found opportunities to generate income. This is the case of Diana Arayón, beneficiary of the ‘Win’ project in Cali’s 20th district; a woman who thanks the training she received from the foundation and the opportunity to do an internship on her current success. She now has a stable job that allows her to give her family and herself a better life.

These training processes, which help increase the quality of life of its inhabitants, which contribute to the construction of opportunities for everyone in all regions, where inequality is reduced and the autonomy of communities increased as a result, reduce the pos-sibility of violence and social injustice in the country.

Successful Productive Value ChainsBy working in conjunction with the participants of the value chains of the companies they represent, AFE foundationshave begun improving the oppor-

tunities and the quality of life of the communities where they operate.

In some municipalities of Tolima (Payanadé and El Guamo), Norte de Santander (Cucuta), Quindio (Armenia and Tebaida) and Cundinamarca (Apulo), the Cemex Foundation has focused on solving two of humanity’s essential desires: work and home ownership.

Through the ‘Bloqueras Solidarias (Solidarity Bricks)’ program, the Cemex Foundation seeks to con-tribute to the eradication of extreme poverty in Colom-bia, working with low income families earning less than two minimum salaries to improve or build their homes with concrete bricks that they themselves produce.

The Cemex Foundation provides training, equip-ment and raw materials for the people who wish to participate in this productive chain. As a result, half of the bricks produced are the property of the beneficiary families, while the remaining 50 percent is used by the project for marketing and generating some income that guarantees the sustainability of the initiative.

Mariana Jaramillo Thomas, Sustainable Develop-ment, Communication and Corporate Affairs Man-ager for Cemex Colombia, explains that the project “directly involves the communities in their develop-ment, offering the possibility for dozens of families to become self-employed.”

According to Jaramillo Thomas, improving the living conditions of Colombian families in vulnerable conditions not only contributes to an immediate welfare, but helps build more decent homes and thus improves a number of other issues that can cause domestic violence, such as overcrowding. Also, having a home in good condition allows families to imagine their futures and evaluate other possibilities to generate income.

In the same vein, the Cemex Foundation devel-oped its “Patrimonio Hoy (Equity today)” program, which, since 2005, has helped more than 15,000 Colombian families of socioeconomic levels 1, 2 and 3 build or improve their homes.

Through this program, families receive help during the construction process with fixed prices on supplies, access to building materials, ease of pay-ment and the support needed to fulfill their dreams of building a quality home.

Among the testimonies gathered by the Cemex Foundation is that of Luis Pineda, a beneficiary living in Bogotá, who has stated, “I am very happy with the program, I started with an empty lot and two years later I have a two-story house with a shop on the first floor.”

In addition to building a home, the program also gave Pineda the ability to generate new income in his home.

For its part, the Surtigas Foundation set the goal to improve the quality of life of populations in conditions of social and economic vulnerabil-ity through its “Jóvenes con Valores Productivos (Young people with productive values)”program, which focuses on three areas: education, employ-ability and strengthening the social fabric.

The first area has educated young people in learning productive values in the departments of Bolívar, Cordoba and Sucre, where 140 people were trained as Technical Gas Installers and were then hired by Surtigas or its network of contractors.

Since 2011, through the creation and strength-ening of entrepreneurship, the program has helped 950 young people in Bolívar, Cordoba and Sucre to improve their income and quality of life through the implementation of business units.

“The foundation is committed to generating wel-fare and community development, based on equity criteria, by creating opportunities and actions that generate great impact and social return,” explains Maria Claudia Trucco, director of the foundation and leader of Surtigas CSR.

An investment of over 3,500 million pesos has ensured the participation of 1,000 young people in the Caribbean region along with members of rural communities living in extreme poverty displaced by the armed conflict and single mothers.

The Manuel Mejia Foundation implements edu-cation programs that are closest to the needs of the productive sector of coffee where its area of influence is centered. Training programs in farm management,

Financial education is one of the strategies

implemented by AFE foundations in an effort to generate opportunities and

income in the communities.

“The creation of opportunities for the most vulnerable communities is the best manner in which we can generate development and move towards sustainable peace.” Bavaria Foundation.Ph

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coffee production, administrative and financial man-agement, food security, among others, respond to the need to continue training individuals who are in the immediate environment of coffee production.

“Here, education goes hand in hand with the generation of income because we need coffee growers to develop viable productive projects and maximize their potential based on the context in which they live. Thus, the foundation prepares people for new opportunities, “says Margarita Buitrago, director of the Manuel Mejia Foundation.

Sectors with Potential In the poorest communities, AFE foundations have detected sectors of the population that work around the same business and that, with support and techni-cal assistance, can multiply their productivity.

The Groupo Familia Foundation, which work towards dignifying the work of recyclers, is a member of an industry association that operates in a sector that handles approximately 25,000 tons of solid waste per day, according to the Superinten-dent of Public Services (SSPD).

The goal of the foundation is to improve the quality of life of the workers through the support and management of recycling production units in the form of warehouses belonging to associations and cooperatives where machinery, transportation and leadership training is provided.

This program began in 2008 and now covers municipalities in Antioquia, Cundinamarca, Valle del Cauca, Cauca, Cesar, Sucre, Atlantic and in some neighborhoods of Bogotá where recycling is not a profitable business due to the costs and volumes of waste. The program has improved the quality of life of

more than 1,600 recyclers, giving support in business management, and also offering access to other projects in education, food, health, recreation and housing.

Maria Adelaida Perez, Executive Director of the foundation and organizational development manager for Groupo Familia, says that supporting the recyclers “contributes to overcoming gaps where vulnerability and imbalance in opportunities are constant. Once this population is effectively included in the economic processes in the country, it will be further away from the dynamics of violence and crime.”

The development of economic and social capacity in more than 13 Recycling Business Units (UDER) in urban areas and four environmental projects in rural areas that bring together workers whose job is recycling, are some of the most note-worthy results. “For 2018, we expect to have over 20 self-sustainable UDERs,” says Perez.

The Electricaribe Social Foundation has also identified a group of people with a lot to contribute to the electricians’ guild. The beneficiaries of the “Reiniciar (Restart)” program now have the possibil-ity of having a new life, away from the informality and health risks involved in fraudulent facilities.

Silvia Cayon Ayub, Executive Director of the foundation, explains that this is an opportunity for people from socioeconomic levels 1 and 2 to receive training in internal electrical grid installation and who are currently performing the job informally. “With the knowledge and the certification they receive, people have new opportunities to enter the job market and improve their living conditions and those of their families,” she says. ‘Restart’ contrib-utes partly to the programs for suppliers, through which the foundation seeks to educate the ‘marañe-

ros’ or schemers in an effort to prevent illegal electri-cal connections and reconnections.

“These people are given the opportunity to re-ceive a certificate that enables them to access formal employment opportunities, moving them away from practices that endanger their lives.”

Additionally, the formalization and education process for people seeking income through informal practices discourages and prevents citizens from re-sorting to extralegal ways to meet their basic needs.

To date, more than 300 people have been trained as operators in electrical installations thanks to the ‘Restart’ program. This initiative, cre-ated in 2004, has been successfully implemented in Barranquilla, Cartagena, Santa Marta, Monteria, Riohacha and Valledupar.

With training, new operators have the opportu-nity to generate income through their inclusion in the formal job market, to improve their quality of life and to dignify their work.

Based on this experience, and other programs such as Hogares Eficientes (Efficient Homes), aimed at training families to recognize the benefits of ad-equate facilities, the Electricaribe Foundation high-lights the importance and benefits of networking.

“When we develop programs that focus on the responsible and safe uses of electrical energy, it is difficult to achieve the commitment of the inhabit-ants of the subnormal areas of the Caribbean region, which tend to use the service illegally and who refuse to normalize the grid due to the obligation to pay the service. Therefore, these projects have helped to resolve this situation,” says the director.

In the city of Barranquilla, the Port of Barran-quilla Foundation (Fundaport) also works to enhance the productive activity of the inhabitants of Los Tres Postes sector in the Rebolo neighborhood, where several families are engaged in the manufacturing of new and recycled pallets.

As Vanessa Danies Urquijo, Executive Director of Fundaport, explains, the purpose of this project is “to generate new knowledge and skills to contribute to the strengthening and exponential growth of the pallets producing units by helping to increase the social and economic development of the population towards a more dignified life.”

To achieve this, the foundation trains dock work-ers in accounting procedures so that their costs are efficient. It also helps build a social fabric in which families can act together as partners rather than separately as competitors.

The existence of such a prolonged armed conflict and the absence of peace has been one of the major obstacles for economic inclusion and constant pro-duction development in the country. In addition, “it has been one of the most destabilizing factors in busi-ness operations,” explains Maria Victoria Llorente, Executive Director of the Ideas for Peace Foundation.

Promoting inclusive business, fostering entrepre-neurship and financially educating Colombians is part of this process for the inclusion of shared values in the economy, where the ultimate goal should be the creation of an ideal scenario to overcome internal conflict. Thus, the impact will be multiplied because a country at peace is the best scenario for economic and social development.

“AFE foundations and the government are partners in the fight against poverty and the construction of peace through the generation of income and opportunities.” Surtigas Foundation.

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Based on the belief that education empowers children and young people to transform their present and their future, AFE foundations consider that strengthening quality, access and inclusion in education in an effort to generate a more comprehensive approach to the issue is one of their main priorities.

and relevant, helps close equity gaps; a silent effort that is implemented from different fronts to help improve the quality of education.

For AFE foundations, education goes beyond a specific program or project, it is understood as an end in itself, an end that generates a significant impact by strengthening the capacities of children and young people. It is a bet on the future that focuses on providing better opportunities, skills and competencies for adult life.

The inclusion of those who have historically been excluded from school, the reduction of dropout rates, the implementation of programs for turning teachers into true agents of change and building schools with innovative teaching models are some of the lines of work defined by the foundations.

These efforts, whose stories, methodologies and results are detailed below, are huge, although some-times they may seem like drops of water in an ocean of needs at a time when the country is determined to make prosperity a reality for everyone.

Teachers: Managers of ChangeInside the classroom, the teachers are the ones who have the power to build knowledge and to facilitate and bring about changes in the educational context. The job of teaching needs to be supplemented with essential tasks such as the creation of values, the promotion of new ways to include all students, and even the need to go beyond technical knowledge by educating students on the concepts of being, knowing and doing, in an effort to develop essential capabilities that help citizens become peace builders.

Teachers are considered the core of the Empresa Privada Compartir Foundation’s program for improv-ing the quality of education. Experience has shown them that it is necessary to transform the school starting from the teachers, as stated in the study published by the foundation in 2014, “In search of teaching excellence: Improving the quality of education for all Colombians.”

“With the knowledge that teachers are a determin-ing factor in the quality of education, we created the Compartir Teacher Award in recognition of the contri-bution to the work of educators who develop transfor-mational educational projects,” as stated by the directors of the Empresa Privada Compartir Foundation.

More than 25,000 applications have been re-ceived during the 15 years in which this this award has existed. 300 teachers have received the award. In addition, since 2012, the foundations began grant-ing the Compartir Rector Award, which has received nearly a thousand applications since it was founded.

For the Compartir Foundation, “the commitment to sustainable peace is evident in our vision to build a more equitable country: through building capacities and creating opportunities. Education is the most ef-fective tool to bridge the existing gaps of inequality.”

“Education is the quintessential motor for development. It is clearly an instrument for social leveling, which opens the doors for learning and peaceful coexistence and should be available for ev-eryone.” With these words, the directives of the EPM Foundation ratify the work done by AFE foundations in terms of improving the options for education that hundreds of Colombian children receive.

For AFE foundations, education is one of the building blocks for individual and communal develop-ment, as well as a clear strategy to achieve the goal of reducing social inequality and poverty.

More than five years ago, the government began promoting the National Agreement for the Improve-ment of Quality Education under the premise that “it is not possible to think of prosperity unless we begin to talk about education,” a task in which AFE founda-tionshave acquired experience and learned lessons in order to generate greater social impact.

Through their long-term actions and strategies, AFE foundations, which work in favor of education and the proper use of leisure time, have been com-mitted to helping provide comprehensive education as a prerequisite to form better human beings, citizens who believe in ethical values and who are respectful toward public property, who exercise their rights, who fulfill their obligations and who live together in peace.

Foundations work based on the conviction that education generates legitimate opportunities for progress and prosperity and, where it is competitive

A MOTOR FOR LIFEEDUCATION,

A teacher with comprehensive training influences the quality of student learning. AFE foundations are aware of this and, therefore, invest in teacher training.

“It is essential to achieve synergy between AFE foundations in an effort to work together in the promotion of education policies that contribute to the road we want to follow.” Compartir Foundation.

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This is the reason why it has focused on pro-moting programs to ensure an educational system through which all Colombians receive education of the highest quality in an effort to achieve equity and progress in the country. “As part of the commitments to build peace, it is necessary to create spaces to facilitate dialogue on education among the different stakeholders in order to coordinate and align joint efforts in a similar direction,” as concluded by the directors of this foundation.

Through the project ‘The Leader in Me,’ the Terpel Foundation is also investing in training primary school teachers to incorporate classroom activities that promote leadership and transform everyday life at school.

The teaching model is based on seven manage-ment habits, which include being proactive and be-ginning any activity with the specific goal that needs to be accomplished in mind, through which it seeks to train principals and teachers in leadership skills that can be implemented across the board in public school curriculums. In 2014, this project was adopted by four local education authorities and 63 public schools,

leadership of teachers, a task whose results are directly linked to the quality of schools in Colombia. A trained teacher who has the tools to transform the school becomes a key player in the process of build-ing peace and opening new windows of opportuni-ties for children in Colombia.

Transforming From the Ground UpWithin AFE foundations, one of the strategies proposed to transform education and turn it into a means of achieving peace and development has been the construction of proprietary schools, which requires differentiating models to address access and quality of education.

The Caicedo González Riopaila Castilla Founda-tion has two schools in the municipalities of Florida and Zarzal, which are in the area of influence of the Rio-paila Castilla sugar mill. This foundation is implement-ing a teacher-training model with an entrepreneurship and technical approach that seeks to offer an education where students can simultaneously, and as a whole school, develop a personal and productive life project.

Starting from their work with these two schools, the foundation looked further into its knowledge and experi-ence, allowing it to become a key player in the develop-ment of public policy on education for the municipalities of Florida, Pradera and Zarsal. For Ana Milena Lemos, Executive Director of the foundation, this is the most significant contribution at a communal level.

The Empresa Privada Compartir Foundation manages three public schools, granted in concession by the local education authorities, through which it also implements a business model to ensure high qual-ity educational services to children from low income families in the city of Bogotá.

Additionally, as a contribution to improving school areas, Compartir, in partnership with dif-ferent entities in the public and private sector, has built 62 kindergartens and schools with the purpose of supporting the learning processes of children and adolescents in Bogotá, Cali, Cartagena, Chia, Chipaque, Fómeque, Guayabetal, Medellín, Montenegro, Pereira, Quetame, Soacha and Viotá, among other municipalities.

As part of this educational model, the Com-partir Foundation entered into partnership with the Tiempo de Juego Foundation (Time for Play) to provide an adequate and safe space for students to spend their free time where they can play sports, which is a project that greatly contributes to building sustainable peace in the country.

Based on the premises and methodology used by the “Football for Peace” model, provided by the Tiempo de Juego organization, the Compartir Foun-dation seeks to encourage sporting and other activities as a means to generate environments conducive to an open dialogue and coexistence for those who have been victims of social exclusion and marginalization and who have not had opportunities for growth and development for themselves and for their families.

Thus, these two foundations contribute to increasing educational opportunities and improving access to education in both rural populations and vulnerable neighborhoods of the capital in order to contribute to building a peaceful country through the creation of opportunities in education.

Other organizations have not built proprietary schools, but rather have committed, through public-private partnerships, to transforming public education in the regions where they operate. This is the case of

where 301 teachers and 60 rectors received training, indirectly impacting a population of 48,834 students.

In line with training members of the educational community, the Terpel Foundation also develops the ‘Schools that learn’ program through which leader-ship, teamwork, institutional self-evaluation, improve-ment plans, curriculum design and teaching strategies are addressed in an effort to improve the teaching of math and language to students in primary school.

“In the Terpel Foundation, we believe that educa-tion is a core element for development, social mobil-ity and equity. It is a universal vehicle for assisting in the training of individuals who ultimately, through their actions, build a more peaceful and less violent society,” says Marybell Gutierrez, head of education programs at the Terpel Foundation.

The Proantioquia Foundation, through its Quality Education programs, is also committed to strengthen-ing the role of teachers as agents of change. This work is carried out hand in hand with public and private entities, “such as the local education authorities of Medellin and Antioquia, which guarantees the best use of resources and avoids the duplication of efforts.”

The “Be + Teacher” and the “Rector: a Transfor-mational Leader” programs are among the initiatives supported by Proantioquia in an effort to strengthen the being and doing of teachers and school administrators. The former began in 2007 in the departments of Antio-quia, Cauca and Boyacá, with the purpose of providing training in communication tools, high performance teamwork, leadership, pedagogy of affection, project management and school management, among others.

According to Proantioquia Foundation directors, “the organization carries out the construction of processes and practices on a daily basis in an effort to influence the construction of a more equitable region by improving the quality of education, which contributes directly to peace.”

Meanwhile, the purpose of the “Rector: a Trans-formational Leader” program is for school managers to develop leadership tools that allow them to become

agents of change in their school’s communities. “If a rector receives comprehensive training to help

him become an excellent human being and a transformational leader, his work will be re-

flected in the quality of student learning,” as stated in the program’s booklet.

Through these programs, AFE foundations seek to strengthen and ensure the training and

“Education is the quintessential motor for development, which opens the doors for learning and peaceful coexistence.” EPM Foundation.

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the Cavelier Lozano Foundation, an institution that “is convinced that social transformations are achieved through this approach, which, although it is a long-term bet, is the only way to guarantee the construc-tion of a peaceful society and country, “says Pilar Noriega, general coordinator of the foundation.

In Cajicá, where 80 percent of the Alquería company operations are located, the founda-tion works to improve the quality of education in conjunction with different stakeholders such as the Mayor’s Office, the Office of the Governor of Cun-dinamarca, the Universidad de los Andes and the Nutresa Foundation, among others.

Eight thousand students benefit from this joint intervention as well as 325 teachers and 22 school administrators in six schools. Management strategies have resulted in initiatives to improve the quality and

Currently, as part of its leadership program in inclusive education, the Saldarriaga Concha Foun-dation is developing a project to accompany 18 schools located in Cali, Buenaventura, Sucre and Bolívar in an effort to promote good practices to care for disabled students.

For the Saldarriaga Concha Foundation, work-ing toward an inclusive Colombia starts from early childhood in order to mitigate the adverse impact on the children’s quality of life. In this regard, training teachers, supporting institutions to address diver-sity in the classroom as well as the mobilization and awareness on the part of the educational community, creates value for a society which is in the process of building lasting peace.

School for EveryoneThe Dividendo por Colombia Foundation moves in the same direction toward creating inclusive schools to generate equal opportunities for all citizens and contribute to the peace building process, acting as a coordinating body between the state, civil society and other organizations implementing programs that en-able children and young people in vulnerable circum-stances “to acquire the tools and skills required to join and create a social and productive life.”

The Dividendo por Colombia Foundation is clear as to why it should focus on education as a way to build a different country. “In 2002, the board defined this approach because we believe, along with the hun-dreds of businessmen who support us, that education is the most important motor of change in a society and that it is the only thing that will allow the country

relevance of the curriculum in the classroom as well as the integration of coexistence issues and the promotion of activities for the use and enjoyment of leisure time.

Pilar Noriega explains, “This foundation was cre-ated in the spirit of contributing to public education in the country because that is where the possibilities of a true social transformation take root, based on the generation of opportunities.”

One of the purposes of the Sociedad Portuaria de Santa Marta Foundation is to achieve this social transformation from the ground up; it is responsible for the administration of three Colombian Institute of Family Welfare children’s homes in the Bastidas and Gaira neighborhoods, and in the village of Ta-ganga, a partnership that has benefited 300 children since their early childhood.

“Having a new generation grow up with values that are useful to the community is a challenge, which is why in these institutions we encourage and educate them to contribute to a better country. Education is our main weapon to counter any distension that exists in our society, “states Yolanda Mendoza, Executive Director of the foundation.

Including the Excluded: A Right and an ObligationBuilding peace is an inclusion process for each and every citizen, which excludes all forms of discrimination based on ethnicity, religion, skin color, gender, abilities or social conditions. This task begins in local institutions, busi-nesses and schools, which on a daily basis take on the mission to incorporate individuals into society.

An inclusive school is a place that teaches and builds based on individual differences. However, his-torically, schools have not always followed pedagogical models that address these realities, which is a chal-lenge that AFE foundations have tried to overcome by meeting the demands of an inclusive education.

“Our commitment is to contribute to clos-ing the gaps of inequality in the country, which undoubtedly are a source of conflict and violence, through inclusive processes where diversity is rec-ognized, valued and owned,” says Soraya Montoya, director of the Saldarriaga Concha Foundation, an organization that, for more than 40 years, has helped more than a thousand public and private institutions and close to a million people.

According to foundation’s data, “access to educa-tion for disabled people is alarming: while 85 percent of the population between 6 and 11 years of age have access to education, only 27.4 percent of the popula-tion with disabilities in this age group also have access, and only 5.4 percent have access to higher education.”

Through its programs, the organization, from a perspective of inclusive education and diversity, en-courages access to and the continuation of education from students with disabilities in all educational levels so they can have equal footing with their counterparts.

to progress. A nation where children cannot enter or complete their primary or secondary school does not have options for the future, “says its directors.

The program’s ‘Procesos básicos (Basic Process-es)’ and Aceleración del aprendizaje (Accelerating learning)’ programs are flexible models focused on teaching children to read and write, which can also be applied to high school and beyond. This rep-resents a second chance for those who, for diverse reasons, did not register into a school at the right time, dropped out or have a special condition that does not allow them to stay in school.

“The population we work with consists of chil-dren who did not enroll in the educational system, dropped out or are at risk of dropping out. Many are young individuals who are considered over-age for their grade level, or, for example, cannot read and write and therefore has resulted in the official system having difficulties in placing them in regular classrooms, “explains the directors of the Dividendo por Colombia Foundation.

In partnership with the local education authori-ties in over 130 municipalities in the country and in cities like Bogotá, Cali, Medellín and Barranquilla, the foundation implements its programs in order to ensure that children return to and remain in school until they complete their studies.

“We are restoring the right to education for a population of 160 thousand beneficiaries annually. Many of them are child victims of forced displace-ment who were recruited into illegal armed groups, or children of combatants and demobilized ex-combat-ants who, due to the dynamics of the conflict, were

Through their work, AFE foundations

help build schools as a scenario for inclusion, respect

and diversity.

“Education is our main weapon to counter any distension that exists in society.” Sociedad Portuaria de Santa Marta Foundation.

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not guaranteed this right. It’s an investment in peace and in the reconstruction of the social fabric, “say the directors of the Dividendo por Colombia Foundation.

According to an analysis carried out by this foundation, after more than a decade after imple-menting these programs, it is clear for both the municipal government and the private sector that the first social risk for a child or young person to be recruited by criminal groups is that he or she doesn’t go to school. “Enrolling in school, regardless of the circumstances in which they enroll, in relation to other children, is an element of protection against the conflict,” the foundation concludes.

One of the partners in this process is the Ban-colombia Foundation. Thanks to the contributions of the employees of the parent company, 98 ‘Basic Processes’ and 197 ‘Accelerating Learning’ class-rooms were opened in 2013, with an investment of more than four billion pesos.

Guaranteeing that schools truly follow an open door policy for all citizens, regardless of age, is an educational commitment to peace and development. This is why the Smurfit Kappa Colombia Founda-tion has proposed providing training opportunities for

this challenge by offering scholarships and university training programs for young Colombians.

In an effort to encourage access to higher education in low-income talented students, the Bancolombia Foundation, through the scholarship program ‘Dreams of Peace,’ has helped 580 young people in 29 departments.

Carlos Raul Yepes, president of Bancolombia, says “the program is a way of thinking and acting that comes from believing that, if less people are on the streets and more people have a good job for life, there will be more productivity, and this will help people develop their talents, which will result in less individuals exposed to drug trafficking, violence and unemployment.”

In this initiative to offer access to higher educa-tion, the Belcorp Foundation is also involved through its program ‘Women Enlightening Women’, which is run in partnership with 21 universities. From 2007 to date, more than 800 young people, many of whom the daughters of Belcorp Corporation consultants, have been given the opportunity to study at a univer-sity or obtain a higher-level diploma.

Today, as part of this program, there are more than 200 active scholarships and approximately 300 professionals that have graduated from the program. The slogan for the program is: “We invest in the education of young girls by offering them access to quality education through full scholarships. We believe that, by changing the future of a child, we are changing the history of an entire society.”

Likewise, through the EPM Regional Fund for Higher Education, the EPM Foundation has given financial aid to 261 academically excellent young students in order for them to have access to higher education through a credit program that offers up to 90 percent of support in financial aid, contin-gent to academic performance.

The AMA partnership with public entities of Me-dellín, the department of Antioquia and the Institute for the Development of Antioquia IDEA must also be included. Between 2014 and 2015, the EPM Founda-tion has invested more than 22 billion pesos of the 100 billion collected by the partnership in an effort to benefit 10,000 students, explains Luz Maria Perez, Executive Director of the foundation.

Furthermore, the Mayagüez Foundation also con-tributes to this cause through their scholarship program for the ICESI University, which pays 100 percent of the student’s tuition at this particular university and a monthly allowance equivalent to a monthly minimum wage to cover living costs. For its part, the university provides food and books and performs academic and psychosocial monitoring to ensure the good academic performance of the student. The program benefits 11 students studying in the fields of Medicine, Pharma-ceutical Chemistry, Biology, Industrial Engineering, Systems Engineering and Multimedia Design.

In Buenaventura, a city where the chances of access to higher education is considerably more lim-ited, the Sociedad Portuaria Regional de Buenaven-tura Fabio Bejarano Grisales Foundation contributes to generating more opportunities for higher educa-tion for students in the region.

“We are convinced that education encourages the comprehensive development of individuals in order for them to become active members of society and exercise citizenship in a purposeful manner, becoming key elements for the improvement of human devel-opment indices. An educated community proposes changes in the context of an open dialogue and the acknowledgement of diversity, which necessary for building sustainable peace, “says Andres Ramirez, social manager of the Sociedad Portuaria Regional de Buenaventura Fabio Bejarano Grisales Foundation.

adults living in municipalities in their areas of influ-ence who did not complete their education.

In the departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca, and in the coffee region, the foundation sup-ports educational processes for forest workers and populations living near the parent company’s planta-tions. To date, 867 adults have participated in the program; these people find that, through access to education, the power to build new opportunities and demonstrate that it is never too late to beat the odds and better themselves can be achieved.

Higher Education: The Challenge of the Public AgendaIn recent decades, the country has made significant progress in guaranteeing coverage in accessing pre-school as well as primary and secondary education. However, if the objective is to generate a real transfor-mation of the current conditions, the biggest challenge lies in ensuring that the thousands of students who annually graduate from school have access to higher education where they can receive education according to their life projects and their guaranteed futures.

According to the Ministry of Education, within the last decade, the coverage rate of higher educa-tion reached 37 percent in 2010. The challenge for the government is to achieve 50 percent coverage because “the possibilities for the development and welfare of the country depend on the continuation of this upward trend.”

Although it is limited to small populations and specific regions, AFE foundations have also taken up

“Education is the universal vehicle for training individuals who are the ones building a more peaceful and less violent society.” Terpel Foundation.

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According to Ramirez, “within the last 20 years, more than500 young students have graduat-ed from higher education institutions in Buenaven-tura with the assistance of this program, which has resulted in the transformation of the economic conditions of their families.”

A similar example where poverty, violence and inequality have been targeted, concerns the influence of the Cerro Matoso Foundation in the department of Cordoba. Here, the foundation has taken on the strengthening of education as a means to achieve progress for the region as one of its main projects.

Using foundation funding as well as resources from company employees and the Cerro Matoso Company itself, the Cerro Matoso Foundation invests in an Educational Support Plan through which schol-arships for students from the region are granted to enable young individuals to attend university.

In 2014, 27 youths from Alto de San Jorge received these scholarships for higher education, and it is expected that, by 2015, this number will increase to 32. “With this and other projects in schools, we seek to address a key issue: education, which is definitely the only way in which many young people can obtain a different vision for the

future and leave the violence in the past,” says Luis Fernando Caldera, Executive Director of the Cerro Matoso Foundation.

Through the ‘Exceptional Talents’ program, the Cavelier Lozano Foundation also provides access to scholarship funds. However, their work goes far beyond, for it targets students in ninth grade and begins a training process to prepare them for higher education. The goal is for this form of support to be reflected in the definition of their life projects and excellent academic results in state tests.

Each of these programs adds to the goal of in-creasing the coverage of higher education in an effort to develop areas of knowledge where young Colom-bians can acquire more and better tools to build the present and the future of the country.

For a More Relevant EducationWith the launch of the educational centers in the district of Aguablanca and Cali, the Carvajal Founda-tion focuses on strengthening the quality of education by providing teaching aids to overcome shortcomings and enhance the talents of children.

The educational centers offer activities in art, culture, technology and basic education with spaces that children and youths can access during the time they are not in school, encouraging the healthy use of leisure time.

This project is implemented through the Aguablanca District Cultural Network Association and the Culturarte Foundation, two grassroots organi-

zations that received the support of the Carvajal Foundation to strengthen their processes and benefit the community through this strengthening.

Meanwhile, for the Manuel Mejia Foundation, one of the main lines of action aims to improve the quality and coverage of education in rural areas of the coun-try, a task in which it works together with the Ministry of Education in the realization of various initiatives.

Among them, the ‘Rural Youth, Education and Rural Development’ program presents a more rel-evant educational model for educating people in rural areas and agricultural schools in Colombia. Accord-ing to the technical specifications of the program, it “offers pedagogical and didactic tools that contribute to a quality education that closes gaps between urban and rural areas of the country.”

This work, which was first developed in conjunc-tion with the Ministry of Education in 2010, today is a national strategy known as “Management Train-ing for Teachers and Principals of Schools with a Focus on Agriculture.”

In partnership with the Genesis Foundation, the model has been implemented in different parts of the country, such as Cundinamarca, Arauca, Putu-mayo, Huila and Cauca. In 2012, it remained active in Arauca, where it benefitted 1,648 students and 68 teachers from four schools.

Thus, through the use of a special methodology, it targets youths from poorer communities by offering them an education according to their context, allow-ing them to enhance their knowledge and leverage the development of rural areas in Colombia.

In Uraba, the Banacol-Corbanacol and Fundaunibán foundations also have a line of action which focuses on education, by improving access and quality of teaching spaces available for the compre-hensive education of the inhabitants of the region.

According to the Fundaunibán Foundation, “our social management model states that education is a priority. It considers education, rather than just an end, as the quintessential means of the transforma-tion of human beings and for their comprehension of learning the tools for living in society.”

In this sense, the foundation strengthens edu-cational infrastructure and processes in low income institutions in the region. It also created the Unibán Institute in the banana region, which provides com-prehensive training, formal education and work for young people in the banana community. In addition,

it supports preschools in the implementation of in-novative educational experiences.

For Gabriel Marquez, director of Fundaunibán, these programs show that the foundation is “com-mitted to comprehensive and sustainable human development of the communities where it is present, focusing on finding opportunities and working in a participatory manner on the development of projects that strengthen the social fabric and cohesion of com-munities, under the principle that we are all respon-sible for building the state and for creating peace.”

For its part, the Banacol-Corbanacol Social Foun-dation is investing in the comprehensive training and effective management of free time through different art, sport and family education centers in an effort to empower girls, boys, women and the community that live in the area of influence of the company.

“The Corbanacol Foundation recognizes that education and culture are motors that transform and build social fabric,” said Juan Felipe Laverde, manager

AFE foundations that invest in higher education contribute to the fight against inequality and inequity, which are prerequisites for a prosperous and peaceful country.

“If children build a life project linked to the development of their communities, they will know that the alternative is not war, and that peace is the path we need to take.” Grupo de Energía de Bogotá Foundation

“Education is the engine of development par excellence, which opens the doors to knowledge and peaceful coexistence”: EPM Foundation.

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of the foundation, adding that any program or project developed in community centers must provide training in life, citizenship, coexistence, skills and abilities.

The Propal Foundation also participates in efforts to “provide training options for work and healthy uses of leisure time for children and youths as a way to ward off this population from participating in violent activities, while also preparing them for their profes-sional future,” says Eduardo Posada Corpas, Execu-tive Director of the foundation.

In this sense, the Propal Foundation has various projects to strengthen the capacities of children and youths in towns like Guachené, Villa Rica, Puerto Tejada and Caloto in Cauca and in Yumbo. Some of the activities focus on strengthening academic and school equipment in schools in these regions.

Furthermore, a public-private partnership between the Carvajal Foundation, the Ministry of Education and the Mayor’s Offices of the municipali-ties of Corinto, Miranda, Toribio, Guachené, Caloto and Puerto Tejada in the department of Cauca, and the Propal Foundation is developing a bill to offer additional school hours that would benefit close to 4,200 children between the ages of 9 and 16 enrolled in public schools.

The objective of this project is to contribute to the improvement of the quality of education, ensur-

ing that children and youths remain in the educa-tional system and offering alternatives to occupy their extracurricular time in a healthy manner. To this end, the program offersartistic, cultural and environmental workshops and programs that also include opportu-nities to participate in sports and language classes. These opportunities help to develop and strengthen the students’ skills as citizens.

Innovative Ideas in EducationThe ‘Palabrario y Numerario’ project that is devel-oped in a partnership between the Corona Founda-tion, the Caicedo González Riopaila Castilla Founda-tion, the Luker Foundation, the Carvajal Foundation and the Genesis Foundation, among other organiza-tions, encourages the development of skills in the fields of language and math for students and teachers from kindergarten through fifth grade.

Training teachers and working with parents and students has been essential to the success of this program, which in 2013 benefited 34,700 children, 826 teachers and 42 schools.

Besides being disciplines of knowledge, mathe-matics and language are tools for life and are neces-sary to the development of any individuals in order to have access to both work and study opportunities, as well as for having the opportunity to maintain healthy relationships within his or her community.

In the words of Angela Escallón Emiliani, Execu-tive Director of the Corona Foundation, “building capacities through the promotion and enhancement

of education in an effort to allow communities the opportunity to obtain a better life for themselves is a prime means for promoting active citizenship.” This is the reason why this foundation considers educa-tion as the most effective route to eliminating social segregation and building democracy in the country and in its different regions. .

The purpose of these partnerships is also to “generate innovative and successful teaching prac-tices that can be implemented in public administra-tions, that is, in public schools, in order to improve the quality of educational. This, of course, is based on the experience already acquired by the founda-tions, “says Ana Milena Lemos, Executive Director of the Caicedo González Foundation.

The Promigas Foundation seeks to teach schools to “do what they have to do in a better way: learning to learn, learning to teach and teaching to learn, in order to improve learning opportunities for stu-dents” through the implementation of innovative programs in schools in the departments of Atlántico, Magdalena and La Guajira.

‘Schools that learn,’ ‘Creative Writing’, ‘Healthy Readers’ and ‘Moraleando’ are some of the strate-gies implemented in order to strengthen the educa-tion that hundreds of children receive in the class-room. The latter, for example, aims to change the views of teachers by intentionally and proactively promoting the moral development of children and young people and improving their behavior and coexistence in the educational community.

For the Promigas Foundation, education “builds justice, equality and social mobility, which provides the opportunity to work together and build develop-ment proposals that sow peace in homes, in commu-nities and in the country.”

Another innovative example of comprehensive care and early childhood education is the initiative by the Carulla -aeioTU Foundation, which operates as a social enterprise to subsidize children of poor families in different cities. The model, since its inception, of-fers support to children in finding the meaning in life through the exploration of their environments.

“We want the thousands of children who graduate every year from aeioTU schools to retain the habit of living in peace and building peace,” says Nathalia Mesa, Executive Director of the Carulla-aeioTU Foundation.

The commitment of the foundation is the con-struction of a less violent country by educating the new generations. During the time in which the students are involved with the foundation, they and their “families and their communities learn to accept and forgive the past and they learn to recognize and live with the exist-ing differences within their communities. They also learn to listen and talk,” explains the director.

With this educational model implemented by the Carulla Foundation, children have the opportunity to experience democracy and peace due to learning,

through example, how to recognize their own identity as Colombians and as members of a community.

“Our education is not theoretical, it is very practi-cal,” says Mesa after adding that the implementation of this pedagogical model in the 16 aeioTU centers has involved the training of over 500 teachers and the participation of 6,000 families.

This initiative supports the concept of compre-hensive early childhood care, a group of the popu-lation that has been left behind and that has only recently begun to be included in public education policies and public schools.

For the aeioTU- Carulla Foundation, this data shows that it is possible to achieve reconciliation, peaceful coexistence, teamwork and joint community

“Education is the gateway to a culture of peace; it is the element that binds fairness and equity f or excellence.”Promigas Foundation.

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“Peace is a commitment to our children.” Germán Jaramillo, CEO of the Éxito Foundation.

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efforts in various parts of the country like El Salado, for example, where they have seen fundamental changes in the children, who are an essential pillar in the reconstruction of the community.

In the words of Nathalia Mesa, it is clear that, through AFE foundations, one can contribute to peace by avoiding the continuance of paradigms, habits and practices that promote violence, discrimi-nation and materialism.

The Luker Foundation, in a public-private partner-ship with the local education authority of Manizales, has implemented within the last 10 years the ‘Active City School” program, which aims to transform the quality of education in 11 public institutions in the city.

With a program focused on developing leadership processes, conflict resolution, democratic participa-tion, teamwork, tolerance, entrance into the labor market and use of leisure time, it has benefited the poor and vulnerable population that lives near the schools which participate in the program.

Santiago Isaza, director of education of the Luker Foundation, explains that the foundation makes this institutional effort because it seeks to have more and better education to increase business opportuni-

ties and generate quality jobs in an effort to reduce the risk of poverty and violence in the city.

In fact, they have been able to show that, by using the model, students are more motivated to participate in student organizations and to take active part in the forums operated by their schools, teaching them to be citizens of peace, to be respectful to others and to exert their human rights. They have seen substantial improve-ments in schools where coexistence has improved, such as the Asunción, Andres Bello and San Jorge schools.

Among other programs that focus on education and the use of leisure time, the foundation also sup-ported the ‘Sport Schools for Peace’ initiative, which helps teach more than 1,000 children annually the importance of values, coexistence and the acknowl-edgement of differences through sports.

Likewise, the Luker Foundation, in part-nership with other organizations, manages the ‘Rectors:Transformational Leaders’ program in the city of Manizales, through which the foundation trains school administrators in being and doing, in an effort to transform the educational community so its members become individuals who are able to understand, who are able to be and who are able to live and transcend.

In the interest of promoting innovation, the Grupo de Energía de Bogotá Foundation has been involved in the ‘Seedbed for Science’ program for the last ten years. This initiative annually benefits over a thousand children, offering a space for scientific thought in which the talents and abilities of children in science and technology are developed.

In the words of the directors of the Group of Energía de Bogotá Foundation, “we are convinced that peace is a generational issue and that, if chil-dren and young people build a life project linked to the development of their communities through science and technology, we as a country stand a chance. In these ten years we have seen children who now know that the alternative is not war, and that peace is the path we need to take.”

This has encouraged the use of free time in an appropriate manner and the means for individual, so-cial and communal development, which reduces risk factors and improves the quality of life of program beneficiaries and their families.

More School, Less Child LaborFor over a decade, the Telefónica Foundation has worked to defend the rights of children and adoles-cents of the threat generated by child labor. This was made possible through a solid program of direct in-tervention with children, their families and the school communities close to their environments.

In particular, the foundation focuses on direct intervention and providing comprehensive care for working minors in cooperation with government and partner organizations. The intervention model focuses on supporting children between the ages of

10 and 14 years old, through a process that includes family support, coordination and complementarity with the different educational institutions, and the intervention in the development of public policies for the affected communities.

“The prevention and eradication of child labor is achieved by improving the quality of the schools where the children participating in the program study, establishing with such schools a sustainable and con-tinuous work plan,” explains Maria Ximena Duran, Executive Director of the Telefónica Foundation.

More than 50,000 children have been helped in 49 municipalities thanks to the network of 10 NGO partners throughout Colombia.

The directors of the Telefónica Foundation highlight the importance of the work done by AFE foundationsand their programs, which encourage the healthy occupation of free time for children, creating a protective environment, where they are kept off the streets and prevented from participating in child labor.

In addition, as part of the challenge of promot-ing engaging technology in the development and innovation of the country, the Telefónica Foundation also implements programs in educational quality and access to knowledge. Through the incorporation of Information Technology and Communications (ICT), opportunities for education and learning are cre-ated; achieved through the training of teachers from vulnerable social environments in order to prepare

them for the digital world. By the end of the 2014, the foundation had trained 3,233 teachers from 78 educational institutions in 42 municipalities.

The different projects that focus on education as a motor for change indicate that this is the gateway to a culture of peace, where it is possible to tear down the prejudices and stereotypes that divide us in order to establish relationships based on coopera-tion and solidarity and develop skills that will help us create an open dialogue between one another and build a more just society.

For AFE foundations, it is clear that any type of project that contributes to opening the doors of schools in order to acquire new knowledge is a means of strengthening that which has already been learned or that which has already encouraged the attitudes and skills of children, which is essential in the process to over-come social segregation and ensure a sustainable future not only for each particular individual, but also for the communities to which they pertain. AFE foundations understand this and know that investing in education is a safe and efficient social investment that impacts both the present and the future of Colombia.

“Education is the vehicle to achieve a more equitable, competitive, innovative, modern, inclusive, strong and participatory society.” Minister of Education.

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Values, beliefs and traditions are expressed through the ways in which individuals participate in recreation, sports and the arts. Culture is a representation of how citizenship is lived and a territory in which peace is built from the communities.

Culture in the TerritoriesBehind the process of strengthening a community is the need to ensure the existence of public spaces that can be used as cultural areas for interaction and coexistence among the people, where the encounter with others promotes solidarity, respect and healthy relationships between neighbors.

The EPM Foundation is convinced of the need to provide areas of culture, education and integra-tion, which is why it created public spaces available for the enjoyment of all the citizens in the city of Medellín where learning could flourish.

“Someone who is touched by culture, education or by sensitivity to the environment is a person who experiences changes in the way he sees the world and relates to it, changes that will certainly build a new and better reality to everyone,” says the direc-tors of the EPM Foundation.

Keeping in line with this concept, one of the objectives of the foundation is, through implement-ing programs for the regeneration of public spaces and in conjunction with the communities, to achieve a cultural transformation, in which “children, men, women and senior citizens interact and understand the various ways of thinking, expressing and feeling in order to revitalize their relationships with others, effectively achieving an improvement in the quality of life of the communities,” says the director.

In the EPM space for Culture and Education, which includes the House of Music, located in the Parque de los Deseos, the EPM Library, located in Plaza de Cisne-ros the Parque de las Luces and in the Water Museum, A LIVING

CULTURE: TAKING A CHANCE ON DEVELOPMENTThe main motivation for AFE foundations is to ward off violence, generate hope and promote cultural changes in children and young people by do-nating technical and human resources to the promo-tion of recreation, sports and the arts in the cities and municipalities of Colombia.

Music, literature, dance and visual arts, among other expressions, are a manifestation of a culture that inherently collects the values, beliefs and traditions that have been forged for years within each community.

For decades, the idea of progress was linked almost exclusively to economic growth, however, since 1966, UNESCO has promoted culture as a constitu-tive part of development, highlighting the role of

located in the Parque de los Pies Descalzos, cultural, scientific and musical programs are offered in an effort to provide the healthy use of public spaces by harboring a sense of inclusion and participation.

Besides promoting the diversity of cultural expressions as part of its programming, the EPM Foundation has also focused its efforts on enhanc-ing libraries in the metropolitan area of the Aburrá Valley and other sub-regions of Antioquia, and on creating spaces for the social use of knowledge in the capital of Antioquia with the EPM Library.

The Fanalca Foundation is involved in another cultural shift of this style, targeting communities that benefit from parks recovered in vulnerable areas of Cali. “These parks are areas for relaxation. They are a joy for all our children, and now we are free from violence,” says Luz Mary Gaitan, a resident of the Comuna 14 Park in Cali.

This testimony, collected by the Fanalca Foun-dation, demonstrates the impact that the program of urban and architectural restoration of public parks in the city has had on the community. The people of the communes 2, 7, 14 and 20 of Cali have benefited from this work, which aims to build, adapt and transform public parks where the neigh-bors become responsible for their development and help ensure their sustainability.

Elizabeth Gutiérrez Muñoz, Executive Direc-tor of the Fanalca Foundation, points out that the recovered parks become meeting places for peaceful coexistence. “We dignify public spaces that have been abandoned or that have become focal points for vio-

cultural goods, services and activities as promoters of identity, values and a sense of belonging.

Giving individuals access to culture when they are children is essential for the formation of sensitiv-ity, expressiveness and coexistence, and is a means to build citizenship. However, in communities where violence and poverty abound, access to cultural events is usually very limited.

In an effort to promote development, AFE foun-dationsfacilitate and promote access to various cul-tural, sports and recreational activities, enhancing the abilities and talents of individuals, transforming the environment of the communities and reconfiguring the public space into areas of participation and peace.

Through the recovery of public

spaces, the EPM and Fanalca foundations

promote spaces for relaxation

and recreation in Medellín and Cali.

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lence, which are located in the most vulnerable com-munities, and turn them into an oasis of coexistence and peace. We have recovered 38,200 square meters in four parks where 357,000 people can enjoy decent spaces for culture, education, sports and recreation year round in a healthy environment that dignifies all human beings,” says Muñoz.

Additionally, through workshops and recre-ational activities, the Fanalca Foundation promotes peaceful coexistence in five districts in the city of Cali. Since its inception in 2004, over 35,000 people have benefited from this initiative that teaches civic culture, through which individuals are trained to

more tolerant, respectful and more inclined to work toward a peaceful coexistence.

Playing an instrument and socializing in the con-text of musical training is significant for children and youths, especially those living in socially vulnerable conditions. The program ‘Music as a generator of peace in children and young people’ was born from this idea, a Huellas Foundation project implemented in the department of Atlántico, which, with the support of the Nelly Ramirez Moreno Foundation (a second level non-profit organization), received a donation which consisted of instruments, a stage and equipment for musical training.

The Escuela Taller de Arte Boteritos Foundation also received a donation of musical instruments. The Children’s Shelter in Tunja was able to buy materials for making costumes for the dance group and the mu-sic group (“tuna”), and the Museum of Modern Art carried out cultural activities and free time manage-ment activities for children and youths.

All the work done by the various organizations was possible thanks to the support of the Ramirez Moreno legacy, which provides resources to institu-tions that work towards strengthening and improv-ing the quality of life of the beneficiary population. It promotes access to education, culture and the arts and improves the quality of life of children and youths and older adults who live in vulnerable condi-tions in 83 cities and in 22 departments.

“Our work is aimed at providing tools to comple-ment traditional education through different types of

artistic expression as a means of building peace and a social fabric,” says Monica Moreno Bejarano, Execu-tive Director of the Ramirez Moreno Foundation.

For children and young people, the impact of this work is reflected in the positive use of free time and in the generation of cultural and recreational areas as peace building mechanisms.

In this regard, Moreno Bejarano considers that, in order to interrupt violence processes in the coun-try, nonprofit organizations must create more spaces for the collective construction of projects and invite government representatives to develop proposals in conjunction with AFE foundations.

Likewise, Moreno Bejarano highlights that, among the outstanding projects by the foundations for achieving sustainable peace is that which includes the “supplementation of our work so that the interven-tion is comprehensive in nature and that it includes all sectors and all the dimensions of the target population. A good example of working together in a structured manner is the case of El Salado, where many entities put in their grain of sand and their experience to make this case an example of successful intervention.”

Education in Being, Knowing and DoingExtracurricular activities, in which children and young people can spend their free time while acquir-ing significant learning, are also included in the AFE foundation programs that promote access to culture.

Through cultural and sports activities, the Banacol-Corbanacol Social Foundation contributes to

At the Initiation and Sports Training Centers (CIFD), children between the ages of 5 and 12 receive a comprehensive education based on physical activities.

become multipliers of citizenship and participants in the civic activities of the city.

“We listen to the needs of the community, which is why we started to implement art and culture pro-grams aimed at teaching citizens topics concerning respect and values, training them as leaders in the establishment of the generation of harmonic relation-ships by following basic rules of coexistence,” says the director of the Fanalca Foundation.

In this regard, Gutierrez added that, in order to guarantee a sustainable peace, foundations must further develop the work they do and find common ground with other organizations with whom to join forces and achieve a greater impact on the various components of human development, thus contribut-ing to generating socially inclusive actions.

“Social programs need to continue in time in order to avoid creating frustration in the community or dis-rupting social processes that produce long-term results. You have to understand that human behavior does not change from one day to another, which is why constant work is required,” says Gutiérrez Muñoz.

Music for PeaceOf the many types of cultural expressions, music is an ideal mechanism to create a dialogue between the individual and the social experience, and promote an entire integration scenario. Global experiences have shown that the practice or interpretation of music by an individual as part of an ensemble develops values such as discipline, respect for each other’s work, and perseverance, which are very positive for the learning processes of children and young individuals.

In an effort to promote culture and support the construction of artistic projects and the social fabric of the country, in 2010, the Bolívar Davivienda Foun-dation created the Colombian Youth Philharmonic, in partnership with the National Batuta Foundation and the Orchestra of the Americas (YOA).

In the Colombian Youth Philharmonic, young musicians between the ages of 16 and 24 found a space to train, improve and visualize their profession-al futures, both nationally and internationally, with the support of world-class teachers. Simultaneous to their musical progress, as individuals, they experience personal growth resulting from arduous practices that produce personal discipline, from the stage with peers of their age, and from taking on challenges such as appearing before world class audiences.

Fernando Cortés McAllister, Executive Director of the Bolívar Davivienda Foundation, explains, “This orchestra is a benchmark in the country, demonstrat-ing to us how we can support culture for the benefit of the population, which shows that, through symphonic music, children can follow successful life projects.”

He further notes that this experience has al-lowed them to prove that musical production in individuals improves their self-esteem; they are

Moving away from violence, creating hope and encouraging cultural changes in children and young people is the main motivation behind the recreation, sports and art programs promoted by AFE foundations.

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building a less violent country and the possibility of achieving sustainable peace in and from the region of Urabá in the northern department of Antioquia.

For the last 25 years, this foundation has applied various programs to benefit not only Banacol em-ployees, which is the largest employer in the region, but also to create better conditions in the communi-ties surrounding the areas of production, and to fos-ter positive relationships between the small banana producers who market their products through them and the company.

Juan Felipe Laverde, the manager of the founda-tion, highlights that more than 5,000 children partici-pate annually in sports, cultural and extracurricular activities outside school, organized and carried out through the Centers for the Initiation and Training of Sports (CIFD) and Culture (CIFAC).

“The foundation worked tirelessly in the imple-mentation of comprehensive programs to strengthen the family as the center of society and as a peace builder. We are especially committed to early child-

originated in the department of Cauca) as well as a marching band. In partnership with the Incolmotos Yamaha Foundation, the Foundation Corbanacol helps stimulate musical rhythmic skills in children and young people between the ages of 8 and 17.

The centers are places for life training through culture and sports, as all projects executed by the foundation, seeking to “strengthen being, knowing and doing.” Thus, they are generating changes in the culture of the region and are showing that there are options other than violence.

“Our programs are accompanied by processes for family empowerment in an effort to make them feel jointly responsible for their welfare, for making processes sustainable and for seeking peaceful alterna-tives for resolving conflicts,” says Laverde.

The director believes that, in order to disrupt the processes of violence, foundations must coordinate efforts, develop comprehensive programs and partici-pate in the implementation of projects and not just finance them. They must coordinate between private organizations, the university and the state in order to strengthen institutions.

Expanding programs to different regions in the areas of influence offers other foundations the experi-ence required and empowers communities to ensure that projects are sustainable. These are some of the commitments that are still pending, according to the director of Corbanacol.

“Generating actions that build the social fabric and peace is, has always been, and will always be a

hood, children, women and young people, because we are aware that the possibility to change the direc-tion of the region and the country and achieving the much talked about sustainable peace is in the hands of this population,” emphasizes Laverde.

In developing the integrated model, the accu-mulated social investment by Corbanacol for 2013 reached 5,820 million pesos and provided 39,771 social services during that period.

Part of that investment went towards Initiation and Sports Training Centers (CIFD) where children and young people receive training in sports and val-ues during which they are also provided with activi-ties during their free time and their families receive psychosocial support.

Thanks to the agreement signed with Indeportes Antioquia and the 11 municipalities of the region of Urabá, this program was extended throughout the sub-region in an effort to help children have the opportunity to develop their skills in five disci-plines: handball, volleyball, soccer, track and field, and gymnastics. The Corbanacol Foundation began to replicate this initiative in Costa Rica where 769 children are already involved.

Sporting activities are supplemented with a comprehensive education through dance, music and performing arts that are carried out in the Centers of Initiation and Artistic and Cultural Training (CIFAC), and which benefit 350 children. They have a seedbed of “Chirimía” (a type of music that

priority for Corbanacol,” the director explains as he identifies the priorities and difficulties encoun-tered in their work.

These difficulties have been mitigated by the partnerships that are being developed within the AFE with other peer entities since “it has helped bring regional needs close to the national public, creating synergies and finding points of convergence in the implementation of programs that benefit more fami-lies,” concludes Laverde.

Sports have also been used as a strategy to promote social inclusion in two priority areas of Cali, where the Carvajal Foundation has implemented various programs in the El Retiro neighborhood and the Comuna 18.

The purpose of the “Golazo” project is to help prevent violence in neighborhoods by train-ing youths as sports instructors and promoting the proper use of leisure time in conjunction with good nutrition and family coexistence.

According to the technical specifications of the project, this strategy “responds to the needs identi-fied in these two areas: lack of spaces for sport and recreation and use of leisure time of young people by promoting values through sports.” This program

The sports training programs “score a goal” against violence by promoting values and fair play among children and youths.

When a community is able to change the way they live and coexist, we can say that we have taken a step closer to peace and coexistence.” Orbis Foundations.

“We supplement traditional education through different types of artistic expression as a means to build peace and a social fabric.”: Ramírez Moreno FoundationPh

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benefits 2,250 children between the ages of 6 and 16 in Cali and Buenaventura.

By promoting values such as respect, honesty, responsibility and solidarity, the Carvajal Foundation seeks to ‘score a goal’ against the violence issues that arise among young people between the ages of 15 and 24 in these communities.

The Cerrejón Foundations System is also com-mitted to the social development of the region where it performs its mining operation through the imple-mentation of sports and cultural programs. The purpose of the programs implemented contributes to “the prevention and reduction in the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and drugs, as well as the promotion of healthy lifestyles and healthy living,” according to the foundation’s most recent annual report.

The music and sports programs are offered as an option to supplement the formal education received in schools. “They strengthen values, and they develop in children and young people the ability to form healthy and constructive relations,” reads the report.

The ‘Talented Young Athletes’ project carried out by the Cerrejón Foundations, in partnership with other institutions, seeks to promote soccer, baseball,

ship between the Alvaralice Foundation, the Mayor of Cali, the Family Compensation Fund of Valle del Cauca (Comfandi) and the Paz y Bien Foundation.

Thanks to this joint effort, since 2013, institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Boston Science Museum and Intel and owners of the Computer Clubhouse Network have participated in this initiative. Some of the other institutions involved include the Nacional Batuta Foundation, which sup-ports the music education program; the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications, which is responsible for the so-called Punto Vive Digital; and the Colombo-American Cultural Center, which runs the English program.

The Cultural Technocenter: We are the Pacific, benefits 1,400 children through cultural education and Information and Communication Technology activities, with an investment of more than $ 5 million dollars, thanks to a successful public-private partner-ship focused on building peace.

One of the testimonies collected by the Alvaralice Foundation is that of Felix Alberto Cabezas, a boy who participates in the activities offered at the Tech-nocentre, who has stated that, “before, the neighbor-hood was very violent, but the boys laid down their arms and started asking how they could participate, so the change has been very good.”

For Viviana Echeverri, Executive Director of the Alvaralice Foundation, “This is an innovative model for human development based on two pillars: technol-ogy and culture, which are implemented through an approach on peace and coexistence.”

Colorful LandscapesBy adding color to the communities, the Orbis Foun-dation contributes to building a more pleasant and peaceful environment through its ‘Medellín se pinta de vida’ and ‘Barrios de Colores’ programs, which contribute to the enjoyment of a more dignified, healthy, sustainable and accessible living environment for the most vulnerable populations.

other athletics and chess among children in the region. It also helps strengthen the regional junior sports teams of the Guajira and junior sports teams of the Esperanza Wayuu School.

The Cerrejón Foundations System’s program for cultural strengthening supports festivals such as the Wayuu Culture Festival or the Return Festival at Fonseca, as well as training individuals as cultural enterprise managers in an effort to develop projects in their communities. It also promotes the preservation of ancestral cultural artifacts of indigenous com-munities in La Guajira and the transmission of this traditional knowledge to new generations.

Music plays a leading role among the art forms used to encourage the creation of a peaceful Guajira; the ORFF program, which promotes playing an in-strument as a means of developing talents, hopes that the students will later join the Cerrejón Symphonic Orchestra; a group comprised of more than 100 local children that have traveled across the country playing music ranging from vallenato, cumbia, porro, and currulao to bolero and the waltz.

“We are the Pacific: Supporting a Culture of Peace”Since February of 2013, the Cultural Technocenter: We are the Pacific has operated in the Potrero Grande neighborhood in Cali, where people live the conse-quences of exclusion. This center is open to more than a thousand young people who wish to display their talents, beat drums and transmit joy.

The 7,000 square meter brick building offers chil-dren and adults the opportunity to engage in free pro-grams to learn music, IT, theater, video production, graphic design, dance, digital technologies, languages, entrepreneurship and even cuisine. The Cultural Technocenter is the result of a public private partner-

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“Experience shows that adding color to living spaces results in positive effects on the quality of life of people starting with a different attitude toward the establishment in which they live,” highlights the foundation’s annual report.

Adding splashes of color to the spaces inhabited by vulnerable populations is one of the activities carried out by the Orbis Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1975 under the Pinar del Río Foundation.

With the conviction that living environments are a fundamental issue when considering a more just country, a healthy society and sustainable peace, the foundation helps by improving housing, community environments and schools in an effort to achieve transformations that go beyond the aesthetic aspect and to include the behavior, ownership and a sense of belonging of individuals towards their homes.

A similar project was implemented in the city of Barranquilla, with the support of the Port of Barran-quilla Foundation (Fundaport), in an effort to change the stereotype of one of the neighborhoods with very high levels of social conflict.

The foundation helped paint the facades of the houses of the Los Tres Postes sector in the neighbor-hood of Rebolo, where one of the most dangerous areas of the city is located, explains Vanessa Dan-nies Urquijo, Executive Director of Fundaport. This change, initially just aesthetic, gave the people of the community the possibility to begin transforming the negative image the rest of the city had of them.

“The strategy was also based on the fact that each person did not paint his own house, but rather had to contribute to the improvement of one of his neighbors’ in an effort to build relationships between the people, which empowered not only the individuals but the entire sector,” says Dannies Urquijo.

Promoting Cultural OrganizationsFor Fundaunibán, culture is “the greatest wealth a community has in terms of cohesion and sus-tainable development.” This is the reason why it promotes, supports and accompanies communities in the formulation, management and development of cultural, sporting and recreational projects in an effort to provide opportunities for the healthy recreation of the inhabitants of the banana regions

“When a community is able to change the way they live and coexist in a space that creates a dynamic of in-tegration and care, we can say that we have taken a step closer to peace and coexistence,” says Gonzalo Velas-quez, Executive Director of the Orbis Foundation.

During the year 2014, the foundation partici-pated in the improvement of 9,509 homes, 44 schools and 77 community settings; and with the support of artists, graffiti artists and muralists, it participated in 158 mural and street art projects. This is part of a partnership with 40 other public and private institu-tions in major cities. Each of these interventions are examples that show that going beyond aesthetics in social investment projects helps develop a sense of belonging through the joint participation in the trans-formation of spaces inhabited by the communities.

The Orbis Foundation is aware that improving living conditions through painting does not feed peo-ple or heal the sick, or solve problems that contribute to the primary conditions that cause violence in a society. However, they are necessary, and data con-firms that, by improving the environments in which the beneficiary populations live, the inhabitant’s lives become dignified along with their life experiences, and they become motivated to change the perception of their communities, focused on new possibilities of advancing in a positive manner.

of Colombia. “We contribute to strengthening their cultural identity, generating a sense of belong-ing and permanence in the region,” says Gabriel Marquez, CEO of Fundaunibán, who notes that in more than 26 years of missionary work they have created 38 cultural organizations and trained more than 980 people.

Emanuel Villegas is among the young individu-als who have participated in these projects He be-lieves that “being part of these cultural processes in music and dance has helped me develop qualities that I never thought I would be able to develop.”

Also, the Grupo de Energía de Bogotá Founda-tion seeks to prepare the grounds for peace by pro-moting cultural expressions, one example being the Festival of Forgiveness in indigenous communities in southern Colombia, which encourages sustain-able reconciliation processes.

According to the directors of the foundation, “culture and education are a priority for the peace agenda geared toward breaking the intergenera-tional transmission of poverty.”

The various initiatives proposed show how culture, understood as an exercise that takes place on the public stage, can contribute to peace building and social development in Colombia. By offering children and young people the opportunity to express them-selves through art and culture they are planting the seeds for true peace and a healthy culture.

When a community is able to change the way they live and coexist in a space to generate dynamic integration and care, we can say that we have taken a step that brings us closer to peace and coexistence.” Orbis Foundation.

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For Colombia, a country which has suffered from such a long conflict, the first difficulty lies in imagining the possibility of a life without conflict. The war has long restricted the room to maneuver overcoming any structural problems faced by any society similar to that of Colombia, such as social violence, poverty and inequality. In our case, war has been a real obstacle and sometimes a pretext for postponing the fundamental changes that we need as a nation; changes that cannot wait if we do not want to disappear from the map of progress and civility.

Rather than talking about post-conflict, let’s talk about what the government itself has called the construction of peace; a process to which some people have assigned specific time frames, such as ten or twenty years. Mistakenly, people think that the post-conflict will begin the day after the agreements with the FARC are signed, that it will be the exclusive responsi-bility of the government or that it boils down to finding employment for the 40,000 demobilized guerrillas. The reality is that building peace is imperative with or with-out an agreement with the guerrillas. In many regions, it began several decades ago, and its development is uneven depending on the regions and actors.

Peace, With or Without AgreementsWe all want an agreement between the government and the FARC that ends the conflict, but building peace requires more than an agreement with the armed groups. Currently in Colombia there are many post-conflict dynamics that need to be ad-dressed both by the state and by the civil society including the private sector, which plays a strategic political role in the reconciliation process.

People have always believed that the agree-ments are a prerequisite to building forums for peace, but sometimes it is the reverse. Reconciliation and development dynamics can act as a wall for retaining war. In Colombia, there are hundreds of regions in which people are returning to their homes, a situa-tion that requires timely attention to the individuals’ social demands. Eastern Antioquia, the Montes de María, the Mid Magdalena region, or the Catatumbo require urgent economic and social responses, if not, these areas will become easy prey for emerging armed

POSTWARWELCOME TO THE groups, and the budding processes for reconciliation and building social fabric may fade away.

We are All Part of the ChangeA second element that should help the business sector in its analysis is the need for change. Many may find it anachronistic and even ideological to talk about the objective causes of the conflict, but they do exist. It is true that neither poverty nor inequality explains the spiral of war by itself; however, add these two ele-ments together with others such as sectarian tradition in politics, the limited capacity of the state to fulfill its basic functions, the lack of public goods, or milita-rism, and they become the breeding ground for any conflict. In the Colombian countryside, these situa-tions are even worse, which is why the poorer popula-tions of Colombia have suffered the ravages of war more than anyone else.

The business sector, as a pillar of the establish-ment and as a key player in a thriving economy, needs to reflect on what its role has been in a society crossed by the conflict. It is impossible to change the country if the elite do not change. To begin with, the private sector must contribute more strategically to building peace not only by supporting its stakehold-ers and the communities directly linked through their investments. It is true that, in Colombia, there is a tax burden focused on large enterprises, which has overwhelmed many citizens. Yet, it is surprising to read some surveys where the corporate sector shows solidarity with the peace effort, but it is not willing to stick its hands in its pockets to disburse resources in an effort to consolidate peace. How can this sector help more? First, by being ethical and disciplined in paying their taxes; which is the natural mechanism for redistributing wealth. Second, by generating greater employment opportunities that impact regions highly affected by war, or by entering into partnerships for development and peace initiatives that really trans-form the lives of the communities.

The New Agendas For better or for worse, war has transformed the coun-try, its culture, its values, its regions and its people. The new social agendas are a challenge for the business sec-

tor; for example, in terms of unions and labor. Given that violence completely distorted the relationship between unions and businesses, reconciliation requires the building of a culture of dialogue and consultation different from the current one we have. Trade unions must change and become stronger, but companies must also participate in this effort, especially in light of the additional challenges of a global economy.

Gender equality is another key factor. All economic studies that emphasize development highlight the need for women to have a greater and fairer participation in the labor market, especially when they have been the main survivors of the war. Their inclusion can have a high social impact on the peace building process.

The environment is another key aspect. Recently, the United Nations removed any doubt that might exist concerning the human origin of global warming. The environment is a complex system that requires joint and consistent efforts by companies and every individual who inhabits this planet. It is an urgent issue of top priority.

Finally, peace raises new questions concerning the kind of country we want to be, and that answer inexorably includes the quality of education. Sadly, we are a nation that still lags far behind in terms of quality, although coverage has much improved.

Without better education, we simply cannot suc-ceed, regardless of the guns being silenced and hatred being pacified. I have no doubt that education will be the key element in improving the country’s social mobility, in breaking the vicious circle of corruption and in taking away public property from the mafias, because a more educated country will have to raise the level of public debate, the quality of democracy, and the character of its leaders.

The end of the conflict poses a great opportunity for the business sector for the economy and for the so-cial and spiritual life of the country. But, we have to do it right because a post-conflict badly executed can lead to another spiral of violence. It depends on the armed groups, it depends on the government, it depends on the business sector, it depends on all of us.

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First of all, we must get rid of the miscon-ceptions about the post-conflict: for example that the big problem that we will face will be dealing with the demobilized combatants. The concern of many businesspeople is what will happen with the 15 or 20 thousand men and women, mostly farmers, who will return to their villages after years of war, many of which are still dominated by an authoritarian culture and which specialize primar-ily in the wielding of weapons.

While this is a big problem, it is neither the main nor the most serious. Colombia already has a 20 year history in the social and political reintegration processes of former combatants, which, against all prejudices, have been successful. A study by the Ideas for Peace Foundation requested by the Colombian Agency for Reintegration (ACR) shows that 75% of demobilized combatants manage to stay integrated in society. This figure highlights how the former guerril-las as the strongest and most persistent in their deci-sion to abandon their weapons.

In fact, the biggest challenge will be building what the High Commissioner for Peace, Sergio Jara-millo, has called “territorial peace.” The signing of an

FOR PEACE?ARE WE READY safety, which means redefining the roles and doctrines

of the police forces; and revitalizing local democracies captured by mafias that made political participation and the exercise of rights unfeasible.

It is well-known that much of the rural sec-tor does not pay taxes. Territorial peace cannot be attained if important agricultural sectors, such as farmers, do not pay taxes, as former director of the DIAN, Juan Ricardo Ortega, reports. The Havana agreements include, among other things, a rural registry that reflects reality, a land fund that allows for the redistribution of plots among farmers and the creation of private property where it does not exist in order to create a true market.

What a paradox! It is about creating the condi-tions for capitalism to flow and not imposing socialist formulas, as is sometimes believed. In fact, this has been the proposal that has been raised for many years by industrialists, like Hernan Echavarria Olozaga (RIP), which had no echo in the past, among other proposals rejected due to the rawness of the conflict.

Another pillar of the transition will be democratic openness. In my view, this has two major components: increasing participation and pluralism and bringing the institutions closer to the people. The Historical Memory Group states in its report “Basta Ya!” that one of the elements that explains the extension of the conflict is the fear of democracy that different levels of society feel: the fear of unions, the fear of popular protest and the fear of social and political mobility which includes, for example, the fear of having the left party govern the country. Many crimes have been committed in Colombia on behalf of communism and many others in the name of anti-communism. As a society, we have to learn to respect freedom of ex-pression, freedom of thought and diversity of political views, inally having, at all levels, a civilian right wing and also an unarmed left wing with true political legitimacy. This is the biggest challenge.

Reconciliation will also be crucial. This is no small matter, nor is it just a symbolic act of hugs between former enemies. The sustainability of the peace process depends on finding the necessary dose of truth and justice to heal wounds, generous policies and deep political repair. Reconciliation is a complex process that depends not only of the government but also on the flow and movements in society; of the cultural, ethical and moral environment that will be put in place. Rec-onciliation requires an understanding of the past.

What to Do?What is the role of the private sector in this future scenario? What is the role of their foundations? For starters, they need to be agents of social change. Once the armed conflict ends, the country will enter into an urgent discussion regarding its development model concerning how much support from the government and from the market is needed to build a more equita-

ble model on the human sustainability of an economy based on the extraction of raw materials, for example.

Colombia has already made some progress in reflecting on the social responsibility of companies. Issues such as the Global Compact for human rights have been on the table for at least one decade. How-ever, the weakness of the government and the excuse of the conflict have prevented the completion of many of the basic principles. The first key element is that the private sector be proactive regarding ethical issues to reach agreements on sensitive issues for com-munities such as water protection.

Second, the post-conflict will make us re-think of the regions as the main stages for social action. The war has not only destroyed the infrastructure of many populations, but it has also destroyed their productive capacity and their trust in institutions. In places like eastern Antioquia, Catatumbo, Montes de Maria and the south, the labor at hand is the physical and spiritual rebuilding of the ravages of war. This requires some-thing similar to the Marshall Plan, which promotes a quick strengthening of community life, as well as the economy. The creation of inclusive and value-added production projects in the territories is an urgent task.

Third, we must invest in long-term and compre-hensive processes. A business person’s pragmatic logic sometimes collides with the ways in which the commu-nities operate, which are slower but more participatory. However, community ties are an essential factor of social change. Specific and fleeting projects may give companies revenues and immediate benefits to people, yet they rarely affect development in a significant man-ner. Billions of pesos have been invested in projects that last only a few months and ultimately leave everyone feeling frustrated. Experiences like the “Valle en Paz” and Peace and Development Programs show that, as they say on the street: the science of peace is patience.

Fourth, we need to act jointly and in a compre-hensive manner. One of the problems of private ini-tiatives in the social field is that sometimes it does not include the public sector and other stakeholders in the region. Abandoning the temptation of welfares and trying out joint planning is an immediate challenge.

Lastly, and most importantly, we need to fo-cus strategically on youth. The critical point of the post-conflict is not the existence of the sixty-year-old leaders of the guerrillas, it is rather how to cauter-ize the wounds through which new generations enter into violence. We need to invest preferentially in rural youth and territories deeply affected by the conflict; those who have not had opportunities to access qual-ity education and employment, who, in a context of disenchantment, are easy prey for recruitment.

Marta RuizDirector of the Verdad Abierta Portal and edito-

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agreement in Havana will be the prelude to a transi-tion period that will involve addressing a real social change because, even if it is difficult to recognize today, much of our idiosyncrasy has been shaped by the conflict, by fear and by distrust through exclusion and stigma. All of this will have to change if we really want overcome the armed conflict. It will not be easy.

If you take a look at the international experience in this area you will understand what we mean. South Africa, after its political transition, lived one of its harshest stages of violence when new ethnic conflicts arose, and today they are discussing about how a social apartheid still persists. Spain and Argentina have not been able to close the lawsuits against justice and memory for the dead and disappeared during their dictatorship; and in places such as Ireland and Guatemala, the deeply desired political stability has not yet been attained despite the fact that the peace agreements were signed more than a decade ago. Therefore, I have no doubt that once the agreement with the FARC is signed, there will be polarization, everyone’s dirty laundry will be aired, and even a new wave of recycled violence may appear. We will have to swim past the tides to find calm waters, and this will only depend on what happens in the coming years in the territories and in doing it right.

Territorial PeaceIn low voices and with relative optimism, the negotia-tors in Havana suggest that the transition period will be 10 years. Other experts estimate that it may take between 25 and 30 years if the task is done wisely. Be-cause the territorial approach means that the govern-ment has understood, at least on paper, that we need to tackle the problems that have led to the perpetua-tion of war: inequality in all its forms (social, ethnic and regional), the precariousness of our democracy, oversized institutions, and, of course, facing the great challenge of reconciliation.

Let’s begin with inequality, and let us point out the only item on the agenda in the Havanapeace talks that deal with it: integrated rural development. Ours was a peasant war; an even more radical definition would be that it has been a war in the colonization regions; where the landless poorer communities, the dispossessed of the civil war of the 50s, ended up where the agricultural frontier expanded voraciously where they got involved with cocaine and guns. It is no secret that, in Colombia, there are two types of countries that coexist: a modern and vibrant urban country and other marginal and forgotten countries.

The biggest gaps that must be closed, and closed soon, are those between the cities and the country; and those of the center with the periphery. The government must reach rural areas. That implies clarifying property deeds, overcoming unproductive land concentration; the transparent exercise of public

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AFE DIRECTORYFOUNDATIONSAsociación de Fundaciones EmpresarialesCalle 123 No. 7 – 07 oficina 303Ciudad: Bogotá D.C.Teléfonos: (571) 5230764 – 5230766www.afecolombia.org

Compartamos con ColombiaCarrera 9 A No. 99 - 02 Oficina 806Ciudad: Bogotá D.C.Teléfono: (571) 6183110 - 618-3146www.compartamos.org

Fundación AlpinaEdificio Corporativo Alpina Km3 vía BriceñoCiudad: SopóTeléfono: (571) 423-8600 Ext. 1063www.fundacionalpina.org

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Fundación Caicedo González Riopaila CastillaCarrera 1a No. 24-56 Of 718. Edificio ColombinaCiudad: CaliTeléfono: (572) 8838847 ext. 101www.fcgriopailacastilla.org

Fundación CarboandesCarrera 10 No. 14-62Ciudad: ValleduparTeléfono: (575) 5711506www.fundacioncarboandes.com

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Fundación Cavelier Lozanokilómetro 5, vía TabioCiudad: CajicáTeléfono: (571) 4887000www.fundacioncavelierlozano.org

Fundación Cemex ColombiaCalle 99 No. 9A-54. Torre 3. Piso 10Ciudad: BogotáTeléfono: (571) 6039064www.cemexcolombia.com

Fundación Cerro MatosoCarrera 4 No. 18 - 43 Barrio CentroCiudad: MontelíbanoTeléfono: (4) 7722042www.fundacioncerromatoso.org

Fundación ChevroletAvenida Boyacá Calle 56 A Sur No. 33-53Ciudad: BogotáTeléfono: (571) 7400111 Ext. 41927www.fundacionchevrolet.org

Fundación CompartirCalle 67 No. 11-61Ciudad: BogotáTeléfono: (571) 312 5080www.fundacioncompartir.org

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Fundación CoronaCalle 70 No. 7 - 30 Oficina 1001Ciudad: BogotáTeléfono: (57 1) 400 0031www.fundacioncorona.org.co

Fundación Dividendo por ColombiaCalle 72 No. 6 - 44 Piso 10Ciudad: BogotáTeléfono: (571) 210 2350 - 210 2511www.dividendoporcolombia.org

Fundación Electricaribe SocialCarrera 55 No. 72-109 Edificio Centro Ejecutivo, piso 7Ciudad: BarranquillaTeléfono: (575) 361 1081www.fundacionelectricaribe.org

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Fundación EPSACalle 15 No. 29 B 30 Autopista Cali YumboCiudad: YumboTeléfono: (572) 3210000 ext. 52152www.epsa.com.co

Fundación Ernesto Mejía AmayaCarrera 14 No. 18 - 50 Barrio SucreCiudad: CaliTeléfono: (572) 8801039 - 8890432

Fundación ÉxitoCarrera 48 No. 32 B Sur 139Ciudad: MedellínTeléfono: (574) 339 6509www.grupoexito.com.co

Fundación FanalcaCentro Empresarial Chipichape Av. 6A BIS No. 35 N - 100 OFC 803Ciudad: CaliTeléfono: (57) 2 6594049 – 6594054www.fundacionfanalca.org.co

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Fundación Gases del CaribeCarrera 59 No. 59 – 121Ciudad: BarranquillaTeléfono: (5) 3306000 ext. 2730www.fundaciongasesdelcaribe.com

Fundación Grupo de Energía de BogotáCarrera 9a No. 73 - 44 Piso 8Ciudad: BogotáTeléfono: (571) 3268000 ext 1849www.grupoenergiadebogota.com/fundacion

Fundación Grupo FamiliaCarrera 50 No. 8 Sur - 117Ciudad: MedellínTeléfono: (4) 3609500 ext. 41346www.grupofamilia.com.co

Fundación Haciendo EquipoCalle 52 No. 47 - 42 Ed. Coltejer Piso 26Ciudad: Medellín Teléfonos: (574) 45765100 ext 5007www.ayudarrefresca.com.co

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Fundación Ideas para la Paz Calle 100 No. 8 A 37 Torre A Of. 305Ciudad: BogotáTeléfono: (571) 218 3449www.ideaspaz.org

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Fundación PropalCarrera 26 No. 13-00Ciudad: Puerto TejadaTeléfono: (572) 6512000 ext 72990www.fundacionpropal.org

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Fundación Smurfit Kappa ColombiaCalle 15 No. 18 - 109 – Puerto IsaacCiudad: YumboTeléfono: (572) 691 4000 ext. 2490www.fundacionsmurfitcartondecolombia.org

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Fundación Sociedad Portuaria Regional de Buenaventura – SPRBUNAv. Portuaria. Ed Fundación Sociedad PortuariaCiudad: BuenaventuraTeléfono: (572) 2423730 - 2410700-09 Ext 2112www.fundacionsprbun.org

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Fundación Telefónica ColombiaTransversal 60 (Av. Suba) No 114A–55 Edificio TelefónicaCiudad: BogotáTeléfono: (571) 593 1227www.fundaciontelefonica.co

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Fundaciones Ramírez MorenoCarrera 11 A No 94 A - 56 Oficina 203Ciudad: BogotáTeléfono: (571) 6347685 www.fundacionesramirezmoreno.org.co

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Documents

UNITED AT AFE we build peace...(1) Reychler, L. y Stellamans, A. (2005). Researching Peace Building Leadership (Vol.71, No.2°) Hungary: Cahiers Internationale betrekkingen en vredesonderzoek.Own