Colombia
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Photo: Miguel Samper for Mercy Corps
Our strategy
Help displaced families, landmine victims, former child soldiers and other victims of Colombia’s armed conflict get the assistance and skills they need to rebuild their lives.
The context
Fighting among left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug traffickers and the army has created the largest population of internally displaced people outside Sudan — at least four million and growing.
Our work
- Children & Youth: Helping newly demobilized child soldiers reintegrate into society and preventing at-risk children from being recruited into armed groups
- Emergency response: Providing families displaced by conflict and flooding with emergency assistance and income-generation skills
- Conflict & Governance: Helping communities peacefully resolve existing land conflicts and formalize land ownership
All stories about Colombia
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Colombia: The war on child soldier recruitment begins at school June 22, 2012
Last month was especially busy as I organized field visits to our child soldier prevention and reintegration program.
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Colombia: Reclaiming children of war May 14, 2012
As many as 14,000 children are fighting in Colombia's armed conflict. Each year, hundreds are rescued or escape — but it's too risky to return home. Mercy Corps is helping them start over.
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Colombia: Helping fellow soldiers back from battle: Adriana's fresh start May 11, 2012
Helping former child soldiers rejoin society is familiar territory for Adriana. She was raised by her uncle in a small village where armed insurgents operated openly.
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Colombia: Trekking to see flood recovery efforts May 9, 2012
I just returned from a trip to Colombia where, instead of sitting behind a computer, I sat in planes, taxis, boats, vans, dugout canoes and on horseback — in one day.
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Colombia: Capture or surrender earns second chance May 8, 2012
Child soldiers in Colombia escape the front lines one of two ways: by turning themselves in, or being rescued in battle. Most come from the countryside, where schools and jobs are scarce, and join an armed group as a way to escape poverty.
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Colombia: Picturing yesterday, today and tomorrow May 1, 2012
Former child soldiers in Colombia created these drawings as part of our program that helps them reintegrate into society after fighting in illegal armed groups.
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Colombia: Stronger communities in the wake of flooding March 22, 2012
Wilfran Zamora Nieto used to spend his days tending field of yucca, cotton, lettuce, radishes, cilantro and onions.
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Colombia: Armed for a new life March 15, 2012
Six weeks ago, 16-year-old Juliana was fighting for the guerrillas in the Colombian countryside. Today she's one of 29 teenage ex-combatants living in a residential neighborhood of Cali, the country's third-largest city, learning how to get her life back on track.
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Colombia: Flood relief fueled by Seattle Sounders March 14, 2012
With the combination of a broken levee and a rainy season that brought four times the average rainfall, the flooding in Colombia in 2010 reached far and wide. In the southern part of the Atlántico department on the Caribbean coast, Campo de la Cruz was completely submerged under water.
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Colombia: Children find brighter futures off the streets March 1, 2012
Espacios para Crecer, or Spaces to Grow, uses education to fight child labor in Bogotá's most impoverished neighborhoods. Children in Colombia are at an even greater risk of leaving school for dangerous and illegal low-paying work to support their desperate families who have fled violence from the country's drawn-out internal conflict. Girls are particularly vulnerable to child labor because they have lower matriculation rates and are more susceptible to sexual exploitation.