Fundación de Desarrollo y Paz (FUNDEPAZ) - Foundation for Development and Peace

In 2010, FUNDEPAZ created a communication campaign, Un Trato Contra la Trata (a treaty against human trafficking), including: a slogan “Los Seres Humanos no Tenemos Precio” (Human beings have no price), campaign logo, and free telephone line for reporting and preventing incidents of trafficking.

In another community-based effort, some 200 community leaders working in the area of Nariño received communication training implemented by FUNDEPAZ with support from the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC)’s Communication Rights programme. The project sought to address the effects of armed conflict upon local people: the violation of their human rights, displacement of families and communities, and increased poverty brought about by conflict.

The training workshops involved communication officers from human rights organisations in Ipiales, Tumaco, and Pasto. Participants refreshed and extended their radio, TV, and internet skills and, using free software, decided to create a network and documentation system for human rights abuses in the area. Participants set up the Citizens’ Communicators Network; and, as an initial step, they signed a memorandum of intent. Fifteen organisations joined the network. As part of the WACC-supported project, FUNDEPAZ produced ‘Tools for the Exercise of Human Rights and the International Humanitarian Law’, a manual designed to provide user-friendly accessible information about human rights and how to claim them.

Conflict, Gender, Rights

Nariño, Colombia, near the border with Ecuador, is an area of coca production and a place of intense conflict between guerrillas and paramilitaries. The WACC reports as follow-up from their participation in the FUNDEPAZ workshop: "Through the project, the consequences of violence and conflict among the most vulnerable communities, such as indigenous and people of Afrodescent, as well as children and women in the region have become more visible to the community at large. FUNDEPAZ reports a marked increase in social leadership and community participation of these sectors as well as a much better level of information circulation between the communities."