The ‘Urabá Diaries’ Lay Bare the Struggles and Hopes of Young People in Colombia's North
The ‘Urabá Diaries’ Lay Bare the Struggles and Hopes of Young People in Colombia's North
Posted 29 April 2016 22:05 GMT
Photo: Road to Urabá, photography of Wikimedia Commons, from the public domain.
Diarios de Urabá (Urabá Diaries), a series published on the blogging platform Medium, offers a window into the lives of people living in the agricultural and cattle ranching region of the north of Colombia. The Diarios bring together stories, as told by educators working in the region, of everyday struggles of the residents there, whose trials and tribulations would otherwise be little known had it not been for the space they created for themselves online.
Written in a clear style of language, the Diarios takes readers closer to the students trying to get an education and find a future for themselves in a place “where the roads, although in poor condition, are watched over by a magnificent vegetation of a thousand colours”:
Original Quote
Water is very scarce, but there are many solutions for finding it. That is why in our Cordoban Urabá, rain is synonymous with happiness. In this land of contrasts and absurdity, there are people willing to traverse hours of path, braving the environmental conditions, in order to go to school.
Urabá was one of the areas of Colombia that suffered an “armed strike” (a forced strike) during the first days of April, ordered by the criminal organisation known as the Clan Úsuga. This group could very well become an important actor in Colombia if a peace agreement between the government and the guerrilla groups that have been fighting for more than 50 years is signed.
The Colombian conflict has gone through numerous phases, but it can be viewed as the continuation of a fight over land ownership and the political orientation of the people, who is constantly caught in the middle between the two opposing sides.
More:
https://rising.globalvoices.org/blog/2016/04/29/the-uraba-diaries-lay-bare-the-struggles-and-hopes-of-young-people-in-colombias-north/
