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BACKGROUND

Inzá is a municipality in the department of Cauca that borders the department of Huila, located between the mountains of the Colombian Central Mountain Range. It is home to the Guanacas and Las Delicias Páramos, ecosystems of great diversity and the origin of many of the country’s most important rivers. It has an ideal climate and soil for growing coffee and various foods. The region has great ethnic, cultural and identity diversity due to the coexistence of indigenous, peasant, mestizo and black communities. This diversity has been a strength, but also a source of some tensions between peasants and indigenous peoples, mainly around territorial governance and land ownership.

The Inzá Tierradentro Peasant Association – ACIT was founded in 1997 with the aim of promoting the integral endogenous and self-managed development of peasants in the region, access to land, community participation in various political spaces and the creation of a Peasant Reserve Zone that ensures their autonomy and sustainability. Nearly 4,000 families are currently linked to or represented by ACIT, 65% of whom own less than 1 hectare of land.

ACIT uses various mechanisms of political influence and mobilisation to achieve comprehensive agrarian reform, correct the exclusion of peasants from the constitutional political pact and advance in the guarantee of rights for this population. It seeks recognition of peasants as political subjects and of their cultural, territorial, organisational, political and environmental dimensions vis-à-vis the State. 

In 2018, after a broad mobilisation, the peasant movement managed to get the Supreme Court of Justice to rule in favor of including the question of peasant self-recognition in the National Population Census. Since then, government entities have produced studies on the peasantry and generated statistical tools with a peasant focus, which are expected to be used in the design and implementation of pertinent public policies.

Education also plays a central role in the identity and struggle of peasants, and has been a way of creating opportunities for young people in the face of armed conflict and for their permanence in the community. 70% of the inhabitants of Guanacas have technical or higher education; the majority have returned after being educated in the big cities. The peasant schools and colleges of the municipality have trained leaders who have fulfilled or are fulfilling political roles at different levels. The municipality also has a community radio station (Radio Campesina) and a public library (‘La casa del Pueblo de Guanacas’) which is a space for meeting and political, artistic and cultural training.

The Women’s Committee of the ACIT is recognised at regional and national levels for its political-organisational work and great capacity for social mobilisation. It leads water management projects and solidarity economy initiatives (such as productive plots, local farmers’ markets, local savings and credit groups) and has a vision of empowerment and food sovereignty based on agroecological practices.

TRAVEL AND LOGISTICS

Participants will arrive in the city of Popayán by plane (1 hour flight from Bogotá) and from there they will travel 3 hours by land to the Municipality of Inzá. 90% of the road is paved (8 km are unpaved) and somewhat winding, so it is recommended to bring medicine for dizziness in case you consider it necessary. To travel through the various paths, participants will travel in groups in 4×4 trucks since there are several stretches of unpaved trail. The tours take between one and two and a half hours.

Visitors will be welcomed in the homes of community members or in the San Andrés hotel in double and triple rooms.

Local food will be provided and produced by the community. There will be options for vegetarians or vegans.

The area of ​​the municipality of Inzá has an internet signal, although connectivity may be limited in transfers between paths.

YOU WILL LEARN ABOUT

  • The role of education in the transformation and construction of the peasant as a political subject from his/her self-recognition in an intercultural territory.
  • Processes of struggle and experience of the environmental dimension of the peasantry, of its diverse practices of relationship with biodiversity and its care through education and peasant organizational forms.
  • Community proposals for training, good living and solidarity economy, based on a collective construction of autonomy and self-management. The experience of the Community Action Boards.
  • Different strategies of political influence with national impact, of peaceful struggle for the rights of the peasantry and the use of the judicial system and existing regulations (strategic litigation).

WHAT TO BRING

Inzá is located between 1 and 800 meters above sea level. June is the cool season with an average minimum temperature of 14 °C and a maximum of 22 °C. Nights can reach 8 °C. It is not the rainy season, but there may be light precipitation.

Bring sunscreen, repellent, reusable bottle, toilet paper, hat or cap, and comfortable walking shoes.

PARTICIPANTS

  • Will participate in dialogue and learning sessions on the functioning and work of the ACIT, the challenges of the peasant movement regarding conflicts over land and environmental management, and the exercise of self-recognition of the peasantry as a political subject with rights.
  • Will visit educational spaces and agroecological farms to become familiar with training, identity and productive processes developed in a sustainable and autonomous way.They will visit crop areas and participate in activities to learn about peasant culture, productive processes and strategies, and forms of management of the solidarity economy and water resources. They will share a space for cultural exchange.