In the company of Bernardo García and his wife, Yulieth Vanessa Mendoza, they not only design and make accessories in bronze and bead. In Distri García, efforts are merged to overcome the adversities that the armed conflict has left in his family. His story is part of the first United Virtual Fair for Victims.

To Bernardo García Muñoz, the image of a military squad sharing the campaign ration with his parents to calm his hunger and his eight siblings marked him since his childhood. This generous and humanitarian action by the soldiers not only inspired him for his future, but was the reason why, at an early age, the guerrillas displaced him from the municipality of Baraya in the department of Huila.

“We arrived in Neiva and there were 13 of us and my father did not have a coin, he went to the Mayor's Office to get help and the mayor lent him a garbage collection dump truck to move and take us to Garzón, another municipality in Huila ", remember.

Since then the life of Bernardo and that of his family, was destined to tour towns and cities. In his mind there was always the scene of kindness of the military forces and when he came of age, he decided to enroll in the army and start a career as a professional soldier. This other link with the military institution was once again the trigger for the guerrilla to declare him a military objective, forcing him to leave the municipality of San Vicente del Caguán (Caquetá), a place where, by then, he was promoting his first undertaking to next to his wife Yulieth Vanessa.

"And we had to leave with my son, fleeing, paying the ticket to Pitalito in Huila, with the only thing I had left was a cell phone of those they called arrows," he says.

But for an entrepreneur like him, life without struggles is not life, life is made up of ups and downs, of successes and failures, a philosophy that, in Bernardo, is not simply an idealistic discourse, but the reason that led him to create in Ibagué (Tolima) the dream calling Distri García, an enterprise that was born 10 years ago in the mind of an artisan, who with his hands made bracelets with names in thread and bead and sold them in the market under an exhibition umbrella in the Galarza park of the musical capital.

"And well, God has given me the possibility of stabilizing myself, since when I arrived, we had to run, fleeing the public space operatives and sometimes they took away all the merchandise, even once in addition to leaving me if nothing else, they imposed a subpoena for a Renault 4 that he had achieved with a lot of effort”, he says.

He is sure that what is really important is having the courage to get up every day and be able to say: yes, you can! Thus, with this conviction, today it has an accredited commercial premise and sells its creations of handmade jewelry in bronze and bead in different departments and these days it is one of the 40 exhibitors at the first virtual fair United for Victims.

"And I am very grateful for having taken us into account, it is a great opportunity to make ourselves known and show not only our entrepreneurship but also our stories of overcoming and fighting," he says.

An example of overcoming to know and support entering the virtual fair (feriavirtual.unidadvictimas.gov.co) space in which they can share with Bernardo and his wife, a woman who, in addition to being the love of his life, mother of his son David and an upcoming baby, has also had a starring role in an inspiring story. She managed to study and graduate as a lawyer, taking advantage of a scholarship granted by the State, as compensation for her condition as a victim of the armed conflict.

(Fin/WPG/LMY/AEB)