The Santa Marta event seeks to strengthen the LGBTI+Q community representatives advocacy processes from the 32 departments and the Capital District. It will run until Friday, February 26th

In this first LGBTI+Q community meeting of the Effective Participation Victims’ Board, the Unit for the Victims’ General Sub-director, Lorena Mesa, said the following during the opening: “This is very appropriate and important. It reinforces the Unit for the Victim’s commitment with this community. We are going through an institutional transformation, reinforcing gender approach application in all mission areas and each of the Victims' Public Policy components.”

This cross-disciplinary work covers the rights guarantee standards, policies identification and mapping in different departments, declarations and data update, registration process, minimum sustenance model, collective reparation and participation. “We have made huge developments, and we want to keep this trend with other SNARIV entities. This is a priority, and we are not going to back up, because we must keep being a gender approach implementation example,” said Sub-director Mesa.

On the first day and joined by Participation Board representatives from 32 departments and Bogota, the occasion was used to thank Eucaris Salas and Anderssen David Morales’ work, national leaders of this differential approach.

The Sub-director thanked them both for their articulated work and the permanent, fluid and assertive communication with the Unit, which will undoubtedly improve victims’ rights belonging to the LGBTI+Q community. In the same sense, Yanny Zambrano Diaz, the Participation Sub-director, highlighted their leadership and proactivity to encourage representatives’ participation alternatives.

The agenda began focusing on Tierralta (Cordoba) and Huila and Meta departments, specifically regarding their historical memory gallery projects socialization. The SNARIV entities offer and incorporation of gender approach presentation came in the afternoon: Ministry of Housing, Department for Social Prosperity (DPS in its Spanish acronym), Unit for the Victims, Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP in its Spanish acronym), Unit Search for Missing Persons (UBPD in its Spanish acronym), Rural Development Agency. Finally, there was a training session about Gender-Based Violence (GBV) as an armed conflict war weapon.

This event, which gathers people on location (with all biosafety protocols) and using virtual media up until February 26th, aims to present training, advocacy and participation initiatives to the 33 departmental LGBTI+Q victims’ boards representatives and, therefore, seeks to strengthen knowledge and access to justice related experiences, historical memory and truth construction.

(End/AP/COG/RAM)