Colombian representatives visit the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences as part of their training experience in the Basque Country
Colombian representatives visit the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences as part of their training experience in the Basque Country
Colombian representatives visit the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences as part of their training experience in the Basque Country
The representatives are participants in a training program created by the LANKI Institute of Cooperative Research and the Hegoa Institute for International Cooperation and Development Studies of the University of the Basque Country as a result of the peace process initiated in Colombia in 2017. The program seeks to help former guerrilla combatants to reincorporate.
Eleven Colombian participants from the Strategies for Intercooperation and Rural Territorial Development - Northern Cauca Group (Colombia) program visited the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences as part of the training they are receiving in the Basque Country. This cooperation program is run by the Hegoa Institute for International Cooperation and Development Studies of the University of the Basque Country and Mondragon University’s LANKI Institute of Cooperative Research.
The project falls within the framework of the peace agreements signed in 2017 between the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP for a reincorporation process for ex-combatants that will lead Colombian society toward reconciliation. Through the project, training and technical assistance are promoted in the Basque Country and Cauca, to strengthen leaders of local peasant, indigenous and Afro-descendant agroproductive organizations, together with former FARC-EP combatants, in two rural municipalities in northern Cauca (Buenos Aires and Caldono), based on a shared vision of a social and community solidarity economy and focusing on gender and generational integration.
The training visit is intended to give continuity to the collaboration process initiated in 2017 and to increase the interaction of Basque entities with local organizations and interethnic groups in northern Cauca: Nasa indigenous councils, Afro-descendant community councils, women's and peasant organizations, and cooperatives of former FARC combatants.
The objectives of this training and exchange trip are shared with the organizations with which we work: organizational strengthening, and interaction and intercooperation from a regional or subregional point of view and focusing on rural socioeconomic development. Cooperatives of ex-combatants are taking part in the project: Caldono Associates, Ardecan, the Toribio Nasa Project, etc.
During their three-week stay in the Basque Country, the representatives will visit a group of Basque organizations and development agencies (Lea Artibai, Urola Costa, etc.), cooperatives, non-governmental organizations, SSE initiatives (REAS Euskadi), union organizations, OlatuKoop, KoopFabrika, Azaro Fundazioa, Aiaraldea Ekintzen Faktoria, etc.
The project is supported by the Basque Agency for Development Cooperation. This is the second year that this training program has taken place.