Brushes and books versus bullets: Medellin's answer to violence

In the Medellin of the 70s, 80s and 90s, many teenagers in the slums grew up poor and bored. They sometimes lived hours away from jobs and opportunities downtown and for them, crime was a way to avoid a future scavenging waste to make a living. When the days of Pablo Escobar were over in the 90s, providing the youth with opportunities was instrumental.

The most important steps to achieve this were taken by Sergio Fajardo. This journalist with a degree in math ran as an independent candidate and was elected mayor in 2003. With his 'Social Urbanism' approach he focused on the root causes of violence: making the slums a part of the city again. Two of his weapons were Education and Culture.

Palaces of the people

Together with architect Alejando Echeverri, Fajardo set up a plan to improve the cities accessibility, education and public spaces. One of their first projects to bring education to the slums was the Biblioteca de Espa?a, a library that was opened in 2006 in the Santo Domingo slum. It serves as a palace of the people, offering access to computers, dozens of practical workshops, places for community meetings, cinema nights, etcetera. Almost all of this is free to enjoy for the community, from whom most never enjoyed any education. Currently, the building attracts over 1000 people a day. It is part of Fajardo's infrastructure of education, along with 5 more libraries and 10 new schools that were built in the comunas, and the dozens of schools that were improved.

SENA reaching out

Colombia's biggest public school is SENA. This national organisation offers practical courses and certification to all Colombians, free of charge, complementing the countries educational system. SENA is our main partner in our project in Moravia, a slum that has recently started to attract tourists on guided urban transformation-tours. Locals could sell them souvenirs, snacks or lunches, but for making and selling food, they formally need to be a certified cook. We organised a series of cooking workshops with a group of local women and experienced chefs, and with help from SENA, we were able to get the women certified.

Also, we helped them to launch a social enterprise around Social Snacks - pesto and marmelade made with locally available herbs and fruits. Our project was extra interesting to SENA, as it is in line with their ambition to reach out and offer more courses in Medellin's slums. They look for local partners such as NGO's, libraries and cultural centers to reach out to the people for which the transport costs and time investment is simply something they can not spare.

Medellin's investments in education are paying off. Workshops and programs offered in Medellin's public libraries were attended by more than 10 million people over the last three years. Between 2002 and 2009, the percentage of students that tested on national level increased from 20 to 80 percent. Books seem to be winning from bullets here; the homicide rate has dropped significantly since (read this for a more nuanced analysis of crime rates). Medellin's efforts (Ruta N) and skilled work force are attracting mainly development jobs that are getting outsourced from the US. This (Dutch) short doc made by the Volkskrant shows Medellin's IT sector.

Culture in action

Fajardo also embraced culture as a strategy to strengthen communities and create positive role models. They built dozens of new cultural centers, to provide a stage for local art forms like punk, hiphop, dance and graffiti. Nowadays, many barrios have impressive cultural agendas that introduce thousands of children to culture every day. Teenagers are led to internships and jobs, through connections with bigger stages and museums downtown.

Juan and his friends are familiar with this route. They all grew up in Pedregal de Itagu?, a slum neighbourhood that got safer only 4 years ago when local armed gangs made a truce. Now in their late 20s, early 30s, they have found jobs in the cultural sector: in the modern art museum, as a designer for the metro and as a photographer/cook. In their free time, the friends started El Hormiguero (the anthill), a cultural center from which they (the ants) organise workshops around music and arts for local children. As former students, they had become teachers and role models for the next generation, like in many other cultural centers,

Last Sunday, Juan and his friends had invited their neighbours for a day of mural painting and soup, commissioned by the municipality. We joined the group and divided around 20 children in teams blue, yellow and red. Together we painted a design that the neighbours had agreed on: Que la Paz te toque (may peace touch you). The hormigas loved to do the mural paintings. From his experience, the community was very appreciative that people were investing in the neighbourhood they had built themselves, something unthinkable in the violent days. For them, the mural symbolises the transformation of Pedregal.

Medellin's cultural vibrant scene clearly illustrates how serious culture is taken. The city has produced a lot of counter culture music such as punk and hiphop in the 00s, and is currently the worlds capital of the most popular music form; reggaeton. Successful groups such as the Crew Peligrosos have started their own hiphop schools, and graffiti has become the main attraction drawing hundreds of visitors a week to San Javier, the former no go area with the third highest murder rate of the world only 15 years ago. And according to locals, some of the worlds best actors and theaters are Paisa.

Just like the boost of education, the new investments in cultural infrastructure have helped the city to recover from violence. This might be surprising, but it is actually a proven strategy around the world. Culture helps people to express their fear, anger or trauma, to find common values or pride, or just to be entertained. Taking up books and brushes does make sense, and makes a strong pillar of Medellin's transformation.