Healing for Sexual Violence Survivors in Colombia

In Colombia, MADRE continues to support Taller de Vida (TdV) to facilitate critical healing processes for survivors of war, like Sofia. Sofia left the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) nine years ago, after being recruited at age 12 by her uncle. Over four years, she was trained as a child soldier, forced into hard labor, and sexually exploited.

After Sofia was left for dead by the FARC when an accident left her disabled, she was eventually discovered by the Colombian army and taken to Bogotá for a "re-establishment process.” Her assigned guardian family brought her to TdV to seek psychosocial support. 

At TdV’s center, Sofia felt comfortable enough to open up and share her lived experiences as a child soldier and was even supported in the process of reuniting with her biological grandmother, whom she regretted not disclosing her decision to join the war. Sofia shared, "At TdV, I felt like a child again–we sang, they gave us delicious food, and they listened to us. For the first time in my life, I went to the movies and met important people from universities and other countries." 

In this recent Forbes article, you can learn more about TdV’s reintegration methodology, which has supported Sofia, and over 20,000 other survivors of war, in overcoming the impact of violence in their lives.