Powerful Baruleras

Through the halls of Luis Felipe Cabrera School, the only public school in Barú, word spread: “Let’s meet after class to talk about what no one talks about.” For a decade, out of 820 students, between 15 and 20 girls and teenagers became pregnant each year. This represented 20% of the institution’s reproductive-age population. Without educational programs to break these poverty traps, it was normal for teenage girls to drop out of school forever.

That first meeting took place at the Casa Rosada, a venue available for cultural activities in downtown Barú, just a few steps from La Bonga, an imposing tree that serves as one of the main gathering spots. That day, 20 women arrived, sat in a circle to hear and see each other; the English and social studies teacher, Mariana Sanz de Santamaría, led the space, and important debates emerged about the body, menstruation, motherhood, and how to deal with situations of violence.

What started as a casual meeting led to other intimate, extracurricular, and voluntary dialogue spaces they named women’s circles. In each session, new questions arose about what it meant to be a woman in Barú, while self-care and consent practices were reinforced. Then it happened. Fueled by the women’s passion for community, organization, and resistance, they decided to call themselves ‘Powerful Baruleras.’

From the Domination of the Land to the Domination of the Body

One of the places the Poderosas frequent the most is Playa de los Muertos, a former 16th-century Indigenous cemetery, from the time when Barú stopped being a peninsula and became an island.

The Barú Island we know today has been marked by struggles for self-determination and recognition of Afro-descendant communities. Tensions over territorial control by wealthy new settlers are evident in the various forms of land ownership and in how Cartagena—one of the cities generating the greatest economic revenue from tourism—has insular and rural districts like Barú, where large mangrove ecosystems are destroyed to build hotels and luxurious vacation homes, while its residents lack basic services such as aqueducts, sewage systems, and basic waste collection.

The domination of the land also involved another form of subjugation: that of the body. Colonial dynamics installed gender stereotypes in Barú that still persist today. On an island that depends entirely on tourism, men, as the labor force, are mainly engaged in construction, fishing, and plantations. Women, meanwhile, dedicate themselves to domestic work—cleaning and attending to tourists—as well as unpaid labor within their families, where adolescent pregnancies and unwanted motherhoods were normalized for many years.

In this regard, Barú is no different from the national reality. The most recent OECD report (2022) revealed that Colombia has the second highest adolescent pregnancy rate in Latin America, and according to DANE, births to girls under 14 years old increased by 43% between 2020 and 2021. This is why incorporating gender content into basic education becomes a necessity that should be addressed across the country, adapting to the specific realities of each territory.

By 2018, when Poderosas began to take shape as a support network, the Luis Felipe Cabrera school did not allow teachers to include these topics in the academic curriculum. This situation is reflected throughout Colombia, as the latest Welbin Index (2022) on school well-being indicates that 7 out of 10 teachers are not trained in human sexuality and sexual and reproductive rights. This shows that talking about teenage pregnancy in Barú points to a past of racism, machismo, and colonialism, but is also part of a much broader reality present across the country.

The Breaking of the Barulero Taboo

Three of the first Poderosas—Miramar Bamo, Deyageorgina Rodríguez, and Johandris Medrano—say that the town was full of myths surrounding menstruation. Some they remember: “If we are bleeding, we cannot be barefoot; don’t even think about cooking papaya sweets, because they will spoil; if you visit a flower harvest, the roses will die; if you enter a cockfighting pit, the roosters will become dazed; if you get on a motorcycle, the tire will burst.” In other words, the menstrual cycle was used to justify any tragedy or sexist behavior.

“We were always taught to be rivals, but women, like water, grow when they come together,” says Johandris Medrano.

“They made us believe that our blood is bad, dirty, and not powerful. But now I feel powerful every time my period comes because I know its healing properties and it reminds me I am healthy,” says Marimar Bamo who, as her name suggests, was born in the middle of the sea; she is a culinary student, Barú activist, and mentor of Poderosas. Today, Marimar also leads reading circles with boys and girls to talk about the body and emotions.

The creation of Poderosas set off alarm bells among some parents and school administrators who felt the initiative was an “incitement to have sexual relations.” However, in a very short time, the results of this awakening spoke for themselves: teenage pregnancy dropped from 18 to 4 cases between 2018 and 2019.

Susana de la Rosa Hernández, mother of nine-year-old Gabriela Martínez, says her daughter no longer follows the “Barú taboo” and now knows about prevention and contraceptive methods. “The other day she told me: I need a menstrual cup, and I was amazed, because we are cutting off the sexist roots that still chase us,” says Susana.

Cristina Hernández, 75, is the grandmother of Ana Sofía and Gabriela Martínez de la Rosa.

Poderosas circles have also been joined by sisters, mothers, grandmothers, and other women from neighboring communities. Gabriela’s grandmother, Cristina Hernández, took part for the first time at the age of 75: “They told us we were born through the armpit!” she jokes, recalling how her parents never spoke openly about these issues, and how she now does so without hesitation with her granddaughters.

Mariana Sanz de Santamaría, director of Poderosas—known by her students as “La seño” (the teacher)—says that when she arrived in Barú, her flag was not feminism but education. But she quickly understood that feminism permeated everything: “If we didn’t start by strengthening decision-making power, self-knowledge, and critical thinking, it was impossible to fight against gender-based violence that perpetuates inequalities. I came to understand what feminism is thanks to the Barú women.”

“La seño” came to Barú through the Teach for Colombia program. Very quickly, the absenteeism of girls and adolescents due to menstruation, and the normalization of teenage pregnancies, led her to organize these extracurricular meetings, which today remain at the heart of Poderosas. These training circles in leadership and sexual education are structured into modules of 10 to 15 sessions, with the flexibility to adapt to the needs of each territory.

This seed, which proposes a new way of educating about sexual and reproductive rights, has spread across Colombia and is now bearing fruit in Urabá (Antioquia), La Guajira, Cundinamarca, Arauca, Bolívar, Chocó, and Valle del Cauca, where new groups of Poderosas have been formed, impacting more than 2,000 girls and young women. In 2023, they set a collective goal: to have men also participate in these circles of dialogue, and some have already started joining.

In Barú, women have been—and are now more than ever—Poderosas: they speak of sisterhood, seek relationships where mutual care and emotional responsibility are valued. They talk openly about desire, pleasure, and rights. Girls and young women identify the different manifestations of violence and know the alternatives for responding assertively. They also share their ideas about what a family means and reflect on their future plans, while at school they are not intimidated if someone says their blood is “dirty.”

And so, the rooster didn’t get dazed, the motorcycle didn’t break down, the papaya sweet didn’t spoil, the flower bloomed straight toward the sun. The girls went to class, the women expanded their leadership to the rhythm of champeta, the men joined with respect and enthusiasm, and the Poderosas went out to celebrate life at Playa de los Muertos.

(*) Researcher at Dejusticia
(**) This article is part of the special #TejidoVivo, the result of a journalistic alliance between the Dejusticia research center and El Espectador.