NOMADESC was awarded a third year of funding this year. Nomadesc has worked since 2000 to address poverty, trauma, and hopelessness brought on by the Triana massacre in El Valle de Cauca, Colombia. Faced with a continued military presence and a deep feeling of injustice in the region, Nomadesc’s “Mujeres de Triana” or “Women of Triana” project strives to help the community heal through ancestral practices which remember and celebrate the victims.

This past year, Nomadesc organized several workshops on the theme of “Saving Ancestral Practices of the Victims of the Via Cabal Pombo.” In addition to their concern with preserving ancestral practices, the group also worries that planned tourism, as well as highway and mining development in the area, threaten their way of life.

This coming year, the Mujeres have several community workshops planned incorporating concepts of human rights and psychosocial accompaniment, including the fifth “Meeting for Life, Memory and Recuperation of the Ancestral Practices of the Victims.” This workshop will also include the creation of a “memory notebook” by the community, in which many of their customs and practices will be recorded and preserved.