The Closing Emergency Gaps to Aid Displaced People program (Closing Gaps), beginning its ninth year, strengthens institutional and community capacities to improve assistance to victims of displacement.
Women who were part of mutual support groups performed two plays as part of a theatrical memory initiative in September 2016. “Memory for Peace” was performed in Florencia, and “Pleading Drums: Bodies that Show Life Connections” was performed in Popayán. These plays were the result of the psycho-social follow-up through the Mutual Support Groups in which female survivors of the armed conflict in Colombia participated. This process provides emotional relief and the recognition of the psycho-social damages that have frayed the social network. It also recognizes the dignity of pain and the understanding of the inner strength victims already possess in order to survive.
Both plays express the group’s memories, such as the displacement due to violence, abduction, and the use of the female body in the middle of the war. The play takes place in five acts, each representing one of their life cycles: chaos, transit, inner strength, birth and ancestry.
These efforts express the women´s voice and memory while being accompanied by drum vibration and healing chants. Each woman laced her own drum as a symbol of life and of emotional change. With it they sang to honor life, love, reconciliation and hope. The words, dance and images came to life as a result of the women´s collective creativity. This work displays their strength, their ancestor´s memory and their creative ability.
Women performing a theatrical play as part of a mutual support group.
“The drum is an ancestral gift, an inheritance of our ancestors that totally changed our lives because thinking about moments of days long gone was a memory of pain, a grieving memory, a memory of hate, resentment and a memory of negative things. Today, thanks to this process, the drum vibration arrived and brought something beautiful into our lives. Being able to remember without pain has brought healing to our bodies. What a sensation to experience that kind of beautiful healing in all our hearts, it is like a light that flows in and is reborn through our existence. It feels like coming to life again, a new life, it means forgetting about the painful moments we lived.” – Woman from Florencia, Colombia
“The drum allowed me to recover my memory. I remembered when I was young, after the children died, there were rituals with drums. The kids were considered angels that went straight to heaven. The drum helps me in my sad moments, it also helps me to bring my childhood to mind. When I met the drum, I started to go out, I came back to life and to memory.” – Grandmother from Florencia, Colombia
“The contribution of the local initiative on ancestral memory and memory for peace has been important to us because it mirrored the pain we felt when our displacement occurred. We have reached the heart of each person in the audience who came to see our play. That has been very important to us. We have healed many wounds, we have shared as a group and it has made us into stronger women. We have learned to face our falls and to pick ourselves up. We have gained a lot of strength. The drums have changed us a lot, we have had very beautiful relaxing moments; the vibration of the drums has reached our hearts.” – Woman from Florencia, Colombia
“We already have a theater play put together. We are going to tell our story through the drums, and also by singing and acting. In each rehearsal we let ourselves go and that is how we manage to speak in public without tears in our eyes, although tears sometimes flow. It is a matter of understanding that we are cleansing ourselves in order to come before people in the public stages where we have been invited to perform. We are the carriers of good news as female drummers.” – Woman from Popayán, Colombia
“To feel the power of the drum is a pathway to change and being able to sing honoring life from within the healing chants was a personal enlightening experience. By putting together the theater play with the drum as a healing tool, we were able to tell our story of what we lived as victims who survived.” – Woman from Popayán, Colombia
“Lacing the drum was like lacing my own story again; to rebuild it now with forgiveness and reconciliation. The psycho-social process was a road to reconciliation with myself. The drum allowed me to explore a new way to communicate with the rest of the world.” – Woman from Popayán, Colombia
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