Barrancabermeja

Today, I’m visiting a social inclusion and income generation project for disabled people which SCIAF is supporting with the Diocese of Barrancabermeja - an hour’s flight north of Bogotá.

For many years, guerrilla fighters, the army and paramilitaries fought over territory here. There were massacres, assassinations and many disappearances. Now the military are everywhere, patrolling the city, overseeing a tense and uneasy ‘peace’.

A lot of people in this area live with disabilities – partly because of physical injuries and trauma caused by the conflict. For people with very low incomes life is hard enough here; for those with disabilities it is often doubly difficult. Making a living is a real struggle. There are very few employment opportunities for disabled people and little in the way of welfare.

The project in Barrancabermeja sets out to support disabled people and their families by helping them to create small businesses and fight for their rights to health care, employment, transport, accessibility and social inclusion. For single parents, caring for a disabled child whilst working can be close to impossible. The project has helped these families to boost their incomes and access the support they need.

At a meeting with more than 50 of the participants, I recognise a lot of the faces from my previous visits. The people here, like most Colombians, are open and communicative and I hear a lot of personal stories about how lives have changed for the better through the support they have received.

One couple, Nancy and Edilson, have just had a baby girl. Both are heavily involved in the project. Edilson is in the co-ordinating team and plays an active role in campaigning for change. Thanks to the support he receives from Barrancabermeja, he has been able to forge a living by designing and making t-shirts which he sells in a local market.

Nancy attends weekly workshops run by the project and has been given help to access the health care services she needs. The family are the centre of attention at the meeting as people gather round to meet the baby. Nancy tells me that they might not have felt confident enough to start a family without the emotional, practical and economic support they have received through the project.

In the meeting I was really struck by how hard the group are working to bring about change. Members of the project have been lobbying the local government and health department directly, calling for improved access to services. Because of their continued pressure, changes are being made to local government policy – changes that will benefit people across the region. The project has also been broadcasting programmes about disability rights on the radio. Thanks to these broadcasts, a number of listeners who once felt trapped in their homes have joined the project and are enjoying a new sense of freedom.