WOMEN AND PEACE IN COLOMBIA: CREATING A CULTURE OF PEACE AND RECONCILIATION” (“MUJERES Y PAZ: CURSO DE CULTURA DE PAZ Y CONCILIACIÓN”), PIENDAMÓ, VALLE DEL CAUCA, COLOMBIA – AUGUST 26-SEPT. 30, 2017

The Peace Education Foundation, in partnership with the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (The Pontifical Javeriana University), trained a cadre of university professors to promote “sustainable green communities for peace” by providing capacity building and leadership training to 81 indigenous “campesina” women from Piendamó in Colombia’s Cauca River Valley. These women and their communities have experience over six decades of violence as guerrillas, drug cartels, and the military have vied for control of the land and its people causing much suffering and displacement of whole communities. These rural indigenous women received training in valuable conflict resolution and mediation skills by participating in interactive, dynamic workshops which took place over 5 weekends focusing on “Conflict Resolution for Creating a Culture of Peace” in order to support the Peace Process in their communities and improve the quality of life and health for their families in conjunction with the Ecological Stoves Project. Through this process women mentored each other sharing life stories and dreams for their families through our community building activities and around the hearth learning to use their eco-stoves as a way of preventing illness in their homes due to years of smoke inhalation from cooking in open pits outside or in the homes. All participants received an eco-stove upon graduating from this life-giving experience.