Women Narrate their Territory

In 2020 the Ministry of Culture launched the "Women Narrate their Territory" programme, which constitutes an affirmative action that recognizes the narrative heterogeneity of Afro, Indigenous, Rural, Diverse, and Disabled women, using oral tradition, writing, music, dance, traditional cuisine and crafts or applied arts, through training, the generation of content and its circulation with an impact throughout the national territory.

"Women Narrate their Territory" is a reality thanks to the articulation of the Directorates of the Ministry of Culture, affiliated entities and allies, and its objective is to build strategies and actions that contribute to the implementation of a differentiated gender approach in the training, content generation and circulation of stories and narratives by women.

In order to reach Colombian women based on their realities as an ethnic people or interest group, six chapters were established:

1.Afro women narrate their territory: This chapter seeks to raise awareness about the contributions of black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal and Palenque women in the construction of the narrative diversity of the nation and how their stories become protective environments of cultural rights in their territories.

2.Indigenous women narrate their territory: This chapter seeks to recognize and uphold the spaces where indigenous women narrate in a circular way, strengthening rituality, governance, cultural values, respect for identity, norms, their worldview, history and ancestral knowledge. Bearing in mind that the main concerns of indigenous women are cultural survival (safeguarding the life of indigenous communities and their legacy), autonomy, self-government and the original law, the protection of the land.

3.Rrom women narrate their territory: This chapter is an opportunity for gypsy women to showcase the history of their land, how they live it and transform it, and how they project it through their narratives, where oral tradition and artistic expressions predominate.

4. Campesino women narrate their territory: Campesino women experience the increasing changes and complexities of rural life today, which is why this chapter aims to strengthen, through the narration of their rural environments, the promotion of family and community development, as well as networks deriving from their daily agricultural activities.

5. Women with disabilities narrate their territory: This chapter seeks to promote the exercise of the cultural rights of women with disabilities, contributing to their status as full citizens, to the valuation of their own characteristics, specific rights and needs, and taking into account the principles of equality and non-discrimination. Along these lines, the programme is intended as a facilitator to visualize the conjunction of various types of identity, the transformation of collective imagery in the face of stereotypes and prejudices, as well as recognizing the unique experiences of women with disabilities belonging to ethnic groups or diverse gender identities, who face multiple forms of discrimination.

6.Diverse women narrate their territory: This chapter includes women with diverse sexual orientations or gender identities, and it to aims to generate from the narratives around their own experiences a social, intercultural and human rights dialogue, with the purpose of eradicating prejudices and multiple forms of exclusion.