Cameron, Sara

Sara Cameron

Children as leaders. Lessons from Colombia's Children's Movement for Peace

1 September 2001Feature Sara Cameron

Colombian children are providing a model of how children can become the authentic leaders of their community—and how children can lead the way to a community-wide shared vision, even when all hope for common vision has faded. Novelist and journalist Sara Cameron was invited by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to chronicle Colombia's children-led peace movement.

For more than 20 years, Colombia has been caught up in a brutal conflict between political opponents. On the left, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and other groups have conducted guerilla warfare against the government since the mid-1960s. Unlike other insurgents in the region who were dependent on support from the Soviet bloc, the Colombian “revolution” has been self-financed through kidnapping for ransom, extortion, and by “taxing” coca producers and cocaine exporters.…