The proposals are made through community dialogues, promoted by the Unit for Victims in the four PDET municipalities in southern Tolima and in Armero Guayabal and Valle de San Juan.

The direct and proactive participation in updating the return and relocation plans to advance in overcoming the situation of vulnerability and territorial roots and community integration among people affected by forced displacement who have returned to their territories is the objective of the "Community Dialogues" strategy, implemented by the Central Territorial of teh Victims Unit  in Tolima.

In the municipalities with Development Plans with a Territorial Approach (PDET), the southern region of the department concentrates the largest number of community approaches. In Ataco, the community of seven villages in the East participates; in Planadas the meetings are held in the townships of Bilbao and Gaitania; in Chaparral they work with the population of Gualara and Santa Helena in rural areas, and in Rioblanco they are developed in the village of Herrera and the town center of Maracaibo.

For Yomari Bueno, leader of the San Isidro hamlet of Rioblanco municipality, expressing the needs and making them part of the adjustments of the programs for the returned population is a significant advance “because for example in our case we are talking about the need for electrification in the sidewalks, the improvement of housing and the aqueduct”.

After the boarding and after making the respective updates, the returns and relocations table will be visited in order to be able to socialize with the pertinent entities each one of the requests and later seek their approval in the Territorial Committees of Transitional Justice in the The mayor's offices, victims' tables and other state entities that are part of the National System of Attention and Comprehensive Reparation to Victims (SNARIV) participate.

"We are carrying out an extremely interesting and judicious task that will allow us to identify the needs of the communities and focus joint efforts to strengthen the programs and projects that we carry out from the Unit to guarantee that the return and / or relocation is consolidated, and above all that the target population does not suffer the rigors of displacement again”, affirmed the Central Territorial Director of the Unit, María José Dangond David.

In Tolima, these actions are carried out in 12 communities. The other beneficiary municipalities are Armero Guayabal with the relocated population of Potosí farm and the municipality of Valle de San Juan, where the previous year the Collective Reparation Subject of El Neme village was closed.   

(End/WPG/CMC/LMY)