Improving Living Conditions through Community Development

Improving Living Conditions through Community Development

Comprehensive community development allows communities to improve their conditions of life by strengthening their capacities through participatory processes and empowerment.

Meeting with residents in Paraiso to prioritize community needs.
In an effort to improve their living conditions and overcome a history marked by poverty, violence and distrust, more than one thousand residents from Paraiso, San Jacinto, initiated a community development process supported by Colombia Responde in September 2010. The goal of the process was to identify the most pressing needs of the community and define the required strategies to address them. Two and a half years later, more than one hundred residents met to inaugurate the community center and the high school restrooms—two of the projects identified in the planning process. The event was not only an opportunity to celebrate the new center, but an opportunity to evaluate the process and identify their achievements.
The community of Paraiso is located seven miles from the urban center of the municipality, a two-hour-long commute when the road is in good condition. Mostly Afro-colombian, the community members are victims of the internal conflict, although they consider themselves “resistant” and not forcibly displaced populations.
Despite institutional abandonment, isolation and violence, the residents are working to overcome these challenges with the support of the municipal government and Colombia Responde. As a result of a participatory planning process, leaders and organizations identified their main needs in order to develop and implement 18 projects on income generation, institutional strengthening, housing, recreation, education, environment, infrastructure, rights, communication and psychosocial support. The construction of community center and high school restrooms are two of these projects.
Previously community residents had to meet at the church or under the trees. Today they have an appropriate place for meetings and events, a storage unit and an office that they use for the community radio center. The award-winning radio program, also supported by Colombia Responde, is produced and broadcasted for and by farmers in the region and aims to foster community participation, expression and empowerment.
Previously the local high school, which serves more than 100 students, had no restroom facilities and students and teachers were forced to go outside. The cost of the new restrooms was offset by contributions from the community in labor and construction materials.
Although tensions remain in the Afro-colombian community and much work remains to be done, residents of Paraiso now recognize that despite these barriers can be overcome and that they are making important achievements toward sustainable development.