On May 21, Colombia celebrates National Afro-Colombian Day, an occasion that holds even greater significance for COSPE this year. <\/p>\n\n
Since 2019, the organization has been working in regions of Colombia marked by more than 60 years of armed conflict, where the absence of the state and economic marginalization have severely affected rural populations and Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities. <\/p>\n\n
Fieldwork takes place in the forests of Putumayo and along the Pacific coast, in regions where geographic isolation and a weak state presence drive many young people toward migration or put them at risk of recruitment by illegal armed groups. Through projects such as \u201cMujeres che tessono un futuro di pace<\/strong>\u201d, COSPE promotes women\u2019s economic autonomy through green businesses and environmental protection led by the \u201cWater Guardians.\u201d At the same time, initiatives such as \u201cFuturo Rurale<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cLiderazgo<\/strong>\u201d\u2014a project aimed at supporting and enhancing Afro-Indigenous youth leadership\u2014 <\/strong>strengthen the role of younger generations in protecting their territories and developing supply chains linked to Amazonian biodiversity. <\/p>\n\n Two projects, in particular, embody COSPE\u2019s vision for Colombia\u2019s future. The first, \u201cOur Rights Our Future<\/strong>,\u201d operates within a global context of rising authoritarianism to defend civic spaces, supporting Colombian youth movements so they can participate in political life safely and effectively. This political struggle is complemented by the cultural dimension of the second project: \u201cAcordes de Paz.<\/strong>\u201d Active in Cali, Buenaventura, and Quibd\u00f3, the project uses \u201cartivism\u201d to transform Afro-Colombian music and traditions into engines of economic and social empowerment, creating true \u201cterritories of peace\u201d in places where structural racism severely impacts Afro-descendant populations. <\/p>\n\n These stories of resilience and creativity will come to Italy on May 22 and 23 as part of the ReClaim<\/strong> Festival<\/strong>. The Colombian city of Cali will be one of the event\u2019s featured cities from the very start, with Mayor Alejandro Eder joining mayors from Bologna, Florence, and Cape Town, as well as the EU Delegate for Colombia, Adrianus Koetsenrujiter. <\/p>\n\n During the festival, Colombia will also be the focus of in-depth discussions at two events on Saturday, the 23rd: <\/p>\n\n Mappamondi Live (Bologna)<\/strong> from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.: a discussion focused on \u201cColombia, a Laboratory of Latin America.\u201d Joining journalists Giammarco Sicuro and Veronica Fernandes will be writer Lina Scarpati and journalist Lucia Capuzzi, with a live link from Bogot\u00e1 featuring Professor Paolo Vignolo. <\/p>\n\n Leg\u00e0mi: From the Neighborhood to the World <\/strong>(Florence) 3:30\u20135:30 p.m.: an event that will connect youth participatory processes in Florence with those in Colombia, through the screening of the short documentary \u201cTerritori di pace\u201d produced in Colombia, and a discussion on the similarities and differences between neighborhood regeneration and youth participation processes in both contexts, with an emphasis on the challenges of cultural uprooting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On May 21, Colombia celebrates National Afro-Colombian Day, an occasion that holds even greater significance for COSPE this year. Since 2019, the organization has been working in regions of Colombia marked by more than 60 years of armed conflict, where the absence of the state and economic marginalization have severely affected rural populations and Afro-Colombian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1298,"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296\/revisions\/1298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festival.cospe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}