Room to Grow

Most of the families who work the greenhouses in Bogotá's Cuidad Bolivar neighborhood have been displaced from rural lands. "Farming is what we know," says Marleny. Photo: Miguel Samper for Mercy Corps

Bogotá, Colombia — Greenhouses are not a common sight in Colombia's crowded capital. But on the southern edge of town, a rocky hillside hosts a half-dozen covered gardens that are offering nourishment for both the body and soul of people like Marleny Yara.

Hothouses swelling with vegetables and herbs, two henhouses, a snail-growing bed and a climate-controlled room for growing mushrooms provide not only a source of food and income for 250 families, but also a sense of self-worth to those who've been forced from their lands by ongoing internal conflict. Most of the participants in this Mercy Corps cultivation project are "desplazados," more of whom live in this neighborhood, Ciudad Bolivar, than any other in Bogotá.

Over the last decade, nearly 3 million Colombians have been displaced by political violence, creating a population of internally displaced persons second only to Sudan. They flee their homes because of maimings, murders and threats.

Marleny is among the survivors. She moved here six years ago from a small town a few hundred kilometers southwest of Bogotá, where her family grew sugarcane and raised honeybees. The 48-year-old's tranquil life was shattered when guerrillas invaded the town and warned residents to cooperate with them — or else.

Marleny's parents fled immediately, but she remained through two separate incidents where she was threatened face-to-face. In a conflict where threats are usually followed by action, she says, "you don't want to stay for the third."

She fled to Bogotá with her two adolescent sons; her husband went his own way. She found an affordable place to live, but soon discovered that urban life was a far cry from the simplicity of the "finca," or farm.

"We're from the countryside, and we always grew things," she said. "But there's no space here."

Last year, however, Marleny found space to grow. Mercy Corps and its local partner Minuto de Dios erected six greenhouses and launched a program to help vulnerable and displaced families cultivate land in the city. Seventy percent of participating families are themselves displaced.

With two dozen of her neighbors, Marleny tends a greenhouse that is abundant with tomato, broccoli, green peas, strawberries, chard and other crops. For nine weeks last fall, she spent every Friday afternoon and Saturday morning in classes with professional agronomists.

"In seven months, I've learned all of this," she says, beaming and gesturing to the beds of vegetables beside her. "How to prepare the soil, how to sow the seeds, how to use natural fertilizers, and how to harvest."

Every 15 days, she and the other participants take home a portion of the greenhouse harvest. That's meant for the last seven months, Marleny hasn't had to buy vegetables for herself or her sons, only one of whom is employed.

The rest of the biweekly harvest goes to fund the project and new initiatives to help displaced families. At the end of the program this June, each participant will get somewhere around 400,000 pesos, or $180, to use towards an individual or cooperative business.

Marleny hopes to use the funds to take what's she learned in the greenhouses, where she spends nearly every day, and launch her own vegetable-production outfit. Despite all she's lost, her spirits are high. "All of us," she says, "have to continue forward."