Search Results for Tag: Colombia
Film festival encourages social engagement in Colombia
The Colombian city of Neiva is located in the valley of the Magdalena River. For the past few decades, a spate of terrorist attacks, corruption cases and violence against women have kept the city in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. But two young journalists based in the city are trying to change that. Hernando Flórez and Luis Eduardo Manrique founded the Cinexcusa Neiva Film Festival seven years ago as a way to get people to critically engage with the social and political issues affecting them.
Co-directors Hernando Florez and Luis Eduardo Manrique
Learn more about the Cinexcusa Neiva Film Festival on the website.
Columbian entrepreneur gives disadvantaged youth a chance
Fighting poverty is a prime objective of Colombian entrepreneur Felipe Vergara. His approach is to support education, which is why he founded the Lumni scholarship network. Corporations invested so that young people with no means can go to college. Once they’ve found a good job, they can pay back the scholarship.
Watch this DW video for more.
Comments deactivated Colombian theater teacher passes down his native culture
Edwin from Bogota teaches theater – but also the ancient values and traditions of his native Muisca culture. He’s stood up to threats from criminal organizations and encourages his students to be better human beings.
Listen to the report from DW reporter Pablo Medina Uribe in Bogotá, Colombia (with contributions from Eduardo Briceño):
Colombian theater teacher passes down his native culture
From the reporter:
I met Edwin a few months back when I was reporting on a series of threatening letters sent to artistic foundations in Bogotá. When I met him, he was the spokesperson for all of the threatened groups, so he was being harassed by a few journalists and national TV cameras. On TV, he said, “My name is Colombian Theater” and refused to give his real name because, he said, this wasn’t only his problem, it was everyone’s problem.
I still managed to get his number and real name and the way he spoke to the cameras stuck with me. Even in times of hardship, he was very conscious that he had to step up not for himself, but for his community of artists. That’s why I thought of him for the Generation Change series.
I went to visit him in his neighborhood, Bosa, a few months later. It is way out of the city towards the Southwest of the country, so I had passed it many times, but I had never been actually there. He insisted we meet there because that land is very important to who he is, but since I’d never heard a good thing about that neighborhood, I didn’t know what to expect.
When I got there, he started talking about his Muisca heritage and about how the indigenous people are still relevant to the community there. I knew that in other places of the country it is more common to live close to native tribes, but I wasn’t aware that this happens also in my own city.
Edwin and his friend Yohanis talked to me for hours as we discussed not only their work, but also Muisca philosophy. We also exchanged book titles and talked about our work. I told Edwin I was very interested in linguistics, so he and Yohanis gave me some lessons in Muiscogun, the language of the Muisca people, and taught me the deeper spiritual meaning of some of its words.
See the Bosa neighborhood of Bogotá on Google Maps here.
Comments deactivated Colombian youth rock their world
Puerto Wilches in Colombia is a small village where donkey-drawn carts share the streets with cars and motorcycles. Now, 21-year-old Ramiro Caicedo and his friends are using rock music to revolutionize their town.
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