PBI-Colombia accompanies ACVC on field trip with University of Antioquia students and professors in Puerto Matilde

Published by Brent Patterson on May 6, 2025

PBI-Colombia has posted on Instagram:

“We accompanied ACVC-RAN in Puerto Matilde, as part of the field trip carried out by students and professors of the Pedagogy and Peace undergraduate program of the University of Antioquia.

Meetings were held with the community to learn about their history of struggle to remain in the territory and the Bufalera project carried out by the Peasant Association of the Cimitarra River Valley. There was also a tribute to the victims of the conflict, different struggles for the territory were verbalized and several trees were planted as a sign of the right to life.”

Photo: Los búfalos.

The Small-Scale Farmer Association of the Cimitarra River Valley’s (ACVC) is a social organization operating in 120 villages in the Magdalena Medio region.

For more than twenty years the ACVC has been striving for a dignified life for peasant families affected by Colombia’s internal conflict. It promotes the implementation of the Peace Agreement as a strategy to achieve structural changes in the Colombian countryside. One of its prime initiatives is helping small farmers substitute coca leaf plantations with environmentally sustainable agricultural projects.

Since the creation of the ACVC in 1996 its members have been victims of assassinations, threats, arbitrary arrests, displacements, disappearances, torture, burning of houses, and food and sanitary blocks. Despite the signing of the peace agreement between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas and the Colombian government in November 2016, the threats and attacks have not stopped.

Peace Brigades International has accompanied the Peasant Association of the Cimitarra River Valley (ACVC) since 2007.