MUMIDAVI worked with members of the Colombian Network of Memory Sites using a range of creative memory processes. They worked with food to bring forcedly displaced people in Cartagena del Chairá and Florencia (Caquetá) together and rebuild their communities. The table provides a space around which people can talk about the past and share strategies for everyday survival. The food that once kept them alive now brings lively community interactions, thus helping them recuperate and creating a new culinary tradition at the same time. Linking food and memory together has inspired participants to set up a peace shop, which gives additional income to the community.
“The communal shop allowed members of the community to share experiences before, during and after the forced displacement; this, together with engaging in an economic activity and in leisure pastime playing games, such as chess and dominos, helped rebuild the social fabric” (Andrea, 2019).
In Valledupar, they developed songs with victims of the armed conflict, often using the vallenato style that the region is famous for. These songs support victims to revisit their experiences during the armed conflict and to transform these memories into lyrics. By singing about the realities experienced in their communities, victims overcome the silence that had been imposed by armed actors.
“When the paramilitary groups arrived in April 1998, they took people from their houses and killed two people in front of everyone. Through violence they controlled the territory. Children were asked to remain silent” (Felicia, October 2019).
You can listen to the songs and read the lyrics, watch films and see photographs of where they were produced, try the recipes that displaced people carried with them, and step into the memories that will never be forgotten.
Other Partners
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Feminists and pacifists making the impacts of war visible
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Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres
- Report on the July 2019 Ruta Pacifica workshop in Caceres. In Spanish.
- Methodological Guide to Ruta Pacifica's Theatre Work. In Spanish.
- Ruta Pacifica Report explaining the theatre work conducted in Caceres and Caucasia in November 2019. 33pp. In Spanish.
- Read the script of the play Tejedoras de Vida y Paz (17pp). In Spanish.
- Read the script of the play El Retorno (10pp). In Spanish.
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