Yuly

Yuly*, is 14 years old, lives in the Avenida Bahía Solano neighborhood in Chocó, Colombia with her mother, eight siblings and grandmother. Yuli is enrolled in high school. Her day-to-day life includes chores at home, crossing the Atrato River to attend school, hanging out with her friends, and crossing the Atrato River again to get home.

When talking about the department of Chocó, the image of poverty, state abandonment, and corruption is always found in the knowledge and memory of the people. Many daily situations seem to end all the illusions and dreams of its inhabitants, afro-descendant and indigenous people, who have always lived in this territory. Their parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and great grandparents have been there, forging the land and the path of their families.

If you cross the Atrato River by boat, in front of the Quibdó boardwalk, you will reach the Bahía Solano neighborhood, one of the highest multidimensional poverty index. Its population is divided into three spaces: the upper and lower part, where Afro-descendant communities live; and in the middle part, the Embera Dobidá indigenous community. They have electricity service, but not water or sewerage, much less garbage collection service. The area that borders the upper and lower part of the neighborhood is occupied by illegal armed
groups. Access to job opportunities and education are scarce.

Yuly, like all the children and adolescents in her neighborhood, faces the risk of flooding (due to the rise of the river), contact with toxic waste and residual water (due to the lack of garbage collection), contamination with plastic waste, high chances of accidents when crossing poor-quality wooden plank bridges, which are the ones that connect the bay with its stilt houses. And also, to the inexistence of adequate spaces for recreation, culture and arts. But he still manages to play soccer in the bay with his neighbors and neighbors when the tide is not high. “I really like playing soccer,” says Yuly.

“When I arrived the first time, the talks they gave us seemed very cool, what they taught us seemed very good, that’s why I was encouraged to come every day to listen to the talks.”

She and her family were selected to participate in the Joining Forces for Child Protection in Emergencies project that arrived in the Avenida Bahía Solano neighborhood in mid-2022, along with 74 other families. “When I arrived the first time, the talks they gave us seemed very cool, what they taught us seemed very good, that’s why I was encouraged to come every day to listen to the talks and what the teachers teach me”, recalls Yuly of her first experience in the project. Four of her eight siblings also participated in the project.

During the year that has elapsed, she has learned things that are rarely addressed at home or at school “We have seen life skills, language, protection, and all those things”, says Yuly. “It was very painful and I hardly liked going out in public like that and here I learned to develop whatever it is, to express myself, and the truth is that they gave me the floor for my opinions to say what I know and what I learned. It has helped me at school, because since they have already taught me here, when they asked me at school in the classroom, I already knew what I’m going to say.”

She assures that her and her brothers experience has allowed them to feel that “they like how they are taught, because they are patient with them, my brothers say it is very cool because here they relax, they can feel a little better, they spend some happy moments here sharing with the teachers and that the teachers are very kind.”

During these months of participation in the group meetings and in the personalized accompaniment, personal and collective transformations have been evidenced, for example, the importance of a family that protects, welcomes, loves, cares, guides, respects and generates moments of happiness. It is also recognized that children are subjects of rights, that they have rights that fathers, mothers and caregivers must protect and guarantee. What are the possible risks to which children and adolescents in Chocó are exposed, how to prevent these risk factors and where to go in case of a violation of their rights.

“Some children have changed, the teachers have taught us here because some children did not know how to write their names, they did not understand what they were saying.” And she continues with a lot of emotion saying “I want to tell you that I am part of the community friends, I like to help the teacher, I like to help the teachers, taking care of the boys, I like all of that. For me, a community friend is not just putting on a sweater and say that; it’s like leading something, helping teachers, guiding people to be better and teaching them what we know so they can learn too.”

One of the most important actions of the project has been to strengthen youth leadership within the communities, through the Community Friends. With the group of adolescents that made it up, we worked on three themes: life skills, protection and communication, and language.

*Not her real name.

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