Learning to Love and Hate in Gaza
Learning to Love and Hate in Gaza reframes one of the world’s most analyzed conflicts by centering the voices that are most affected yet least heard: Gazan youth. Through direct work inside Gaza’s schools and universities this research highlights how young people themselves interpret, negotiate, and ultimately construct political understandings within a landscape saturated by conflict and competing narratives.
Book by Patrick McGrann
Listening to our friends in Gaza: Aboud serves coffee amidst genocide
Following our project to smuggle coffee into Gaza, Cafe para la Lucha, we wanted to go deeper and highlight some of the challenges facing our local friends in Gaza City. In this short film, Aboud shares his struggles as he attempts to recover from the loss of his home and employment by improvising a coffee shop in the ruins of Gaza City. And while this effort to both support his family and community ultimately succumbs to the wider famine and genocide imposed on Gaza, it’s important to know more about the people who are suffering through it.
Film by Ted Neiters
1,000 Voices
Following the untimely death of our talented colleague, Michael Ben, Mafe Fernandez completed his final project – photographing 1,000 Colombians from all walks of life to highlight the beauty and diversity of his country.
Photography and book by Michael Ben and Mafe Berrio
Cauca Education Report
This internal report tests the centrality of education within peace-building and notably follows up on routine political commitments and explores the messier reality of implementation. More specifically, this working document asks in the commitments made to rural Colombia following the 2016 Final Agreement are progressing, as well as what steps can be taken to improve the process halfway through the 15-year implementation window.
Report by Patrick McGrann and Lis Cardona
Halfway to Peace
Following 2024’s photo contest, Halfway to Peace, Luz Marina Pineda Morales stepped up to further analyze and highlights the wider trends the winning photos represent.
Report by Luz Marina Pineda Morales
Digno Retrato (Worthy Portrait)
Through the photographic lenses of two young artists from the University of Cauca (Colombia) and the voices of varias generations, Digno Retrato brings Cauca’s hybrid identify to life, concluding that the regional capital of Popayán is much more than the white city.
The full documentary is currently scheduled for release in 2025-6.
Film by Fanny Aparicio
In the Shadow of Puracé
Lina recounts a field visit to Puracé, highlighting the nuance and riches of rural communities often overlooked amidst decades of conflict.
Article by Lina Alonso
Colombian Violence Survey (Cauca)
As media reports continue to catalogue increasing violence in Cauca, Voices set out to better understand the reality of this issue. In turn, Voices surveyed 100 people in various municipalities throughout the department on whether they agreed with news reports that violence has been rising over recent years. In response, a clear majority (69%) agreed that violence has indeed increased since the signing of the peace agreement in 2016.
Survey by Patrick McGrann and Lis Cardona
Virgen of Carmen, let those coscorrias burn, amen, amen and amen
Entrance of the Patron Saint to Rosales. Oil on no canvas.
Article by Lina Alonso
Colombian Peace Survey (Cauca)
To guide Voices’ community engagement and contextualize our qualitative research numerous surveys are being employed throughout marginalized communities in rural Colombia. This includes a survey in the Department of Cauca on the progress of the 2016 Colombian Peace Accords organized in May and June 2022 to coincide with national election.
Survey by Patrick McGrann and Lis Cardona
Avitourism in the Serranía del Perijá, another face of the Peace Accords
Lina Alonso highlights the experiences of 150 former FARC combatants who, after signing on to the 2016 Colombian Peace Accords, are betting on the biodiversity of their land and community tourism to say “no more” to war in the former ETCR of Tierra Grata, in Cesar.
Article by Lina Alonso
The future of REDD+ projects in Colombia is promising but uncertain.
John Myers recounts a conversation with Colombian conservationist and Executive Director of Fondo Acción Natalia Arango and Charles Bedford, U.S. conservationist and chief strategy officer of the international firm Carbon Growth Partners, on the future of carbon sequestration projects in Colombia.
Article by John Myers
A Celebration of Cauca’s identity.
A Celebration of Hybrid Identity is a photographic chronicle by María Fernanda Berrío and Daniela Carolan Lombana featured in El Espectador that recounts the “Celebremos Cauca” project from the eyes of local participants. The article highlights not only the final product festooning the walls of Popayán with the diversity of faces living throughout the department, but importantly also focuses on the role of local artists and other young people taking ownership of the initiative.
Article by John Myers
Pilgrimage of Faces
Chronicling the final days of the “Celebremos Cauca” project, Lina’s account logs the at times messy and chaotic efforts to celebrate the diversity of the in many ways still conflicted capital of Cauca — as well as its unexpected results.
Article by Lina Alonso
Celebremos Cauca Portrait Gallery
Complementing the 200 large format posters covering the walls of Popayan earlier in the year under the banner of under “Celebremos Cauca,” this smaller online gallery of 50 portraits comprises an ongoing representation of the community art project and the wonderful diversity of people calling Cauca home it aims to honor.
Photos by Michael Ben and Leidy Chavez
Vandalism in Popayan
While Inside Out’s first project in southern Colombia was widely seen as successful, that is not to say it was not without challenges. This includes vandalism that primarily targeted the Afro and Indigenous portraits presented throughout Popayan, Colombia’s “White City.” This short video clip hints at the damage that followed.
Video by Fanny Aparicio
Unpaved Road to Peace
As teenagers, they decided to fight for the FARC. Now that a peace agreement has been signed in Colombia, the young people of Caldono return to their bombarded town. Community leader and coffee farmer Farid Julicué is dedicated to achieving reconciliation between villagers and former rebels.
Film by Jaap Van T Kruis