{"id":87185,"date":"2023-07-19T22:08:33","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T03:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dejusticia.org\/montes-de-maria-una-despensa-de-historias\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T12:40:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T17:40:43","slug":"montes-de-maria-a-treasure-trove-of-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.dejusticia.org\/en\/montes-de-maria-a-treasure-trove-of-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Montes de Mar\u00eda, a treasure trove of stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

They are there, with cameras on their shoulders and microphones in hand, to tell the world every time their communities march demanding health, education, or roads. With the same energy, they appear when rice is hulled, ‘mote de queso’ (a traditional cheese soup) is prepared, and women braid their hair. All are scenes of the peasant, indigenous, and Afro resistance that the Montes de Mar\u00eda Rural Communication Team has dedicated itself to telling since they got tired of being told by others.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was about ten years ago. The peasant and ethnic organizations in this area, grouped on a platform called OPDS, realized that they needed to position their rural development agenda among the communities and show the country their efforts to achieve “a dignified permanence in the territory,” as their motto says. Thus, they were convinced, these struggles would have more collective strength and more echo to attract the attention of the State. Although some of their complaints were heard by the media, the feeling that remained was almost always one of disappointment: the coverage ended up misrepresenting their claims.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only alternative was to tell their own stories. A dozen rural leaders of all ages signed up for the challenge. They would continue to defend causes such as the protection of seeds, victim reparations, or access to water, but they would also dedicate themselves to telling the stories of these struggles. They discovered they were communicators along the way, through trial and error. They combined their political training with the communication workshops offered by the Corporaci\u00f3n Desarrollo Solidario, an NGO that has been accompanying rural processes in this region since the 90s.<\/span><\/p>\n

Their first campaign was a series of short documentaries called <\/span>Cultivating food is harvesting peace<\/span><\/i><\/a>. In it, they tell the stories of several peasant, indigenous, and Afro communities that continue to produce food on their plots despite being suffocated by agro-industrial projects (of palm, pineapple, and teak) that monopolize land and water.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since then, they have produced documentaries and podcasts about the environment, women, peasant economies, and childhood that have competed in national festivals and are often disseminated in universities. In 2019, they recorded the music video <\/span>Pa\u2019 sembrar<\/span><\/i><\/a> with the group Systema Solar, an anthem to Creole seeds that featured a community from the high mountains of El Carmen de Bol\u00edvar.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Communication Team covering a peaceful walk of the rural communities to Cartagena. Photo courtesy of the Rural Communication Team.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Six minutes of impact<\/b><\/h3>\n

With a six-minute documentary, they achieved the unthinkable: a representative of the State came to their communities. It was March 2017, the drought was raging, and the rural leaders of El Carmen de Bol\u00edvar, San Jacinto, and Marialabaja were preparing to undertake a peaceful walk to Cartagena. The plan was to get to the office of the Governor of Bol\u00edvar and demand answers for the promises about education, health, and roads that the mayors of these municipalities had failed to keep.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Communication Team recorded all that preparation and also organized a kind of mock march. <\/span>The video<\/span><\/a> shows the peasants leaving their villages on donkeys and explaining the reasons for the walk. One peasant woman denounces that the road is very deteriorated and the products are being lost; another man explains the journey they have to make when a snake bites them or they cut themselves with a machete. \u201cWe\u2019re going to Cartagena, let no one be left behind!\u201d is heard in the background.<\/span><\/p>\n