Leidy was displaced by armed conflict 14 years ago and again in 2015. She arrived in Popayan and lives in a neighborhood called 31 de Marzo where Mara Helena and Ruth Sarita are known by everyone as the cuidadoras (caregivers).
With the support of International Relief and Development (IRD), these women play a caring role in groups for the emotional recovery of victims of armed conflict in the community through psychosocial activities. In August, Leidy was invited by the cuidadoras to be part of these groups along with 16 victims, most of them women. After 12 meetings sharing their emotions, memories and experiences, they were able to transform their lives recovering from the harm inflicted by armed conflict.
Last Wednesday, as an expression of their recovery and memory, the group presented the art exhibition Canvases of Memory in a cultural center of Popayan. Each member of the group presented a self-portrait with images and symbols of their transformation.
The portraits used vibrant colors with gold lines as a symbol of their lives put together again after violence. A name was given to every portrait to remember their loved ones along with a short testimony. The small sign under Leidys portrait read:
I managed to fight like a survivor, to pass the paintbrush on top of the black color of death, remembering the violence that took away my childhood but never my strength. Now I have built a new path in my life. I understood the importance of letting tears clean my soul from so much pain. I have been able to cry and laugh, to take out these sad memories and transform them.
The art exhibition will continue on display around the city and, on April 9th, the portraits will be presented as part of activities to commemorate National Victims Day, joined by several other memory initiatives from survivors.
International Relief and Development (IRD) implements the Closing Gaps program in Popayan funded by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. Since 2014, IRD has trained over 80 caregivers in 11 municipalities in Colombia to implement more than 30 mutual support groups and 20 memory initiatives for the emotional recovery of more than 700 victims of armed conflict.
