Two-day Workshop Organized by CGNK in Medellín, Colombia

CGNK organized a two-day workshop on November 10 and 11 at the Center for Faiths and Cultures, in Medellín, Colombia. The program was focused on nonviolent tools for conflict resolution and gathered a diverse group of 21 people from different local and regional organizations. The workshop was directed and conduced by CGNK Education & Training Team Leader Luis Javier Botero.

Nonkilling was also discussed by the participants who were presented with data and findings from different sources such as the World Health Organization’s Violence Prevention Alliance or CGNK’s research colloquium on neuroscience. Participant feedback was extremely rewarding labeling the program as a “life changing experience.”

Luis was Nonviolence Adviser to the Governor of Antioquia (Colombia) for 7 years and led the State’s Nonviolence Program between 2001 and 2007. He also organized the 5th International Nonviolence Conference (Medellín, 2002) and was the first Level II and III Nonviolence trainer in Latin America. He is also the first recipient of the “Gene Sharp Nonviolence Activist Award”, Bethlehem, 2005.

Medellín was once known as the most violent city in the world, with 6,349 killings in 1991, a murder rate of 380 per 100,000 people. In 2009 about 9 people were killed every day but currently [2015] the homicide rate is down to 20 per 100,000 people, the lowest in decades.