The importance of dreaming and visualizing what we want

BETWEEN THE PANDEMIC AND I You must wake up from false reality. Teidy Cano, Cartagena Development Management Program for Afro-Colombian Women, master’s degree in Cultural Management Pacific Power

Unbelievably, my daily life became everyone’s daily bread. They all lived the days of confinement that I knew from a very young age due to the lack of money in my house. My parents had to go out — both — all day to get something to eat. They are certainly a reflection of the norm for many families; for others, the situation is even worse. As a child I understood that for reasons I did not understand, life was more difficult for me, just as it was for many of my schoolmates. To think if we were going to have a place to live or what to eat, if I was going to be able to study, if my mother couldn’t go to work anymore; She felt helpless not to be able to produce to help her. I experienced premature stress, instability, and uncertainty.

Between the pandemic and I, it is again no surprise that the racial gaps in which we live have widened. The rest is part of our history, of that inequality that is unequivocally crossed by ethnicity. I heard very discouraging phrases: that this virus is “a matter of hunger,” that this has affected the mental health of more than one person; I learned of a family of ten who have always lived in a house with only one room and have no way of isolating those who have been infected.

But, after all, who am I? It’s simple: I am human, and the human runs through me. Between my body and the world, I am a woman, Afro-descendant, citizen, with a cultural identity and integral freedom. I was born in a context and with a social contract assigned to me by these labels. And, beyond the conjuncture and the historical pressure - not only my life experiences and those of my community, but also those of my ancestors, of the social fractures that the pandemic perpetuates -, beyond all that, our spirit is supportive; our culture and our knowledge help us to survive. We have and collaborate with each other to take care of ourselves and others. I keep thinking about what I can do to make a permanent life in pandemic conditions stop being normal life for my people. Poverty has the face of a woman Milady Garcés, Buenaventura DALE, MingaLab, MIT CoLAb Community Innovation School and Master’s Fellow, Gobierno Pacífico U. Icesi

We are facing a feminization of poverty. From there we understand the preponderance of women among the impoverished population. Poverty is a differentiated phenomenon, which specifically affects women. This, added to the aftershock of the coronavirus, presents a very complex panorama. The coronavirus exacerbated the crisis we are experiencing in the Pacific and revealed the overload it exerts on our bodies as women. We are mothers, wives, daughters and leaders, who take on the never-ending task of balancing and sustaining the social, community, political, and livelihood processes of our homes and communities.

Despite our motivation, leadership, and drive, we face the health, economic, social, and psycho-emotional difficulties generated by the spread of the virus in precarious territories. The inequalities suffered by women in these lands are now more noticeable due to the following conditions:

• The shortage of households • The increase in domestic and gender-based violence • The imminent risk of death, given by the lack of hospital infrastructure • Difficulty of access to connectivity for education • The psycho-emotional and mental health consequences

Reducing poverty in the framework of this pandemic implies increasing awareness about gender inequalities and the impact of the precariousness of territorial infrastructure on their lives and communities; a social conscience and a state co-responsibility.

The LGBTIA Population Resists Salvatore Laudicina, Buenaventura African Literature Laboratory and DALE

Being an Afro-descendant and a member of the LGBTIA community in the Colombian Pacific implies a struggle on two fronts. As Newball Segura, a youth leader and member of the collective, Corporación Social Pacífico Diverso, says: “it means raising a single flag to fight discrimination.” The LGBTIA population actively seeks to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus among the populations most in need. “We are aware of our social responsibility with our people. It is not only about demanding, but also about giving. That is the backbone of our leadership: contributing actions to change. There is so much to do. If we can contribute with one or more humanitarian aid, we will. We belong to Buenaventura.” adds Newball Segura.

Although the situation demands priority actions, the present must also run its course. The pandemic cannot be an excuse to stop addressing other fronts; On the contrary, it must be an impetus for individual and collective vindication actions that contribute to this long-awaited socio-cultural change in the territory.

Buenaventura is experiencing a historical moment, and not properly because of the virus. The union on these two fronts, of the LGBTIA and Afro-Colombian population amid the pandemic, makes it clear that new leaderships have been born in the Colombian Pacific. These leaderships have understood the power of their actions: what they do today must transcend time and create new processes that affect the social future of their communities.

The crisis of the ecosystem and organizations in COVID-19. Non-profit organizations during the Crisis Ana Isabel Vargas Tutor, advisor and manager of Visible Hands Programs since 2013

COVID-19 has many faces: it started as a health crisis, consolidated as an economic crisis, and is becoming a humanitarian crisis. Many experts project the falls in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the countries and the losses of the companies, but very few have wondered about the situation of non-profit entities or philanthropic entities dedicated to the service of the community.

What is happening to the sector that does not seek to enrich itself, but cannot survive if it does not receive income?

Non-profit entities (ESALES) are losing a lot from the pandemic. A survey conducted at the end of March by the

Charities Aid Foundation of America, which consulted more than 550 ESALES located in 93 countries, found that 96.5% of them have been affected by the reduction in the contributions they receive. The main problem in the pandemic is the need to act urgently, so ESALES cannot plan for the aggravated needs of the communities they serve, but instead draw on the few immediate opportunities that remain.

At this moment in time, creativity and reasonable creativeness are more important than ever, since only they will allow ESALES to identify new services and lines of action that allow them to survive and continue helping those who need it most. Today we have no established routes or safe roads. It must be understood that the return to a (new) normal will not be easy and linear, but rather a road with ups and downs. It is worth noting that, despite their multiple limitations, the ESALES are setting an example as they do everything, they can to continue carrying out their social work. The crisis has shown that the nonprofit sector is one of the few - or perhaps the only one - supporting those most in need amid adversity.

Although it may not seem like it, the crisis may be an opportunity for ESALES to strengthen. It is a matter of resilience, hard work, and creativity.

Citizen and social organizations at risk of extinction. Giuliana Brayan, volunteer, assistant and coordinator at Visible Hands since 2011

In the midst of the health crisis, our leaders and their organizations are reinventing themselves. This has been the retelling of some of the stories. Despite the tears that these dialogues brought, we meet heroines and heroes of the common who do not allow themselves to be overcome by fatigue and continue to give their all for service. These and these leaders have not given up. On the contrary, they have reinvented themselves during the crisis. After the dialogues we have, it is clear to us that these organizations:

1. They have reaffirmed their commitment to the community.

2. They have had to clarify the obstacles that have been crossed, as well as the tools they want and can get, checking the effectiveness of the instruments that are at hand. 3. They have learned to embrace the term “pilot project”; They are aware that in this pandemic scenario there are several challenges, and that therefore the implementation tests are necessary to move to another level.

4. They know that they cannot afford a break from using social media. Right now, they are your best allies and you must come up with any creative method to make yourself known.

5. They recognize that together they are stronger. As a group, they can be and do more. With the support of others, they know that they can ask for help and persuade their communities to embark on this new adventure.

The road is not easy, but it leads us solely and exclusively to move from speech to action. Our organizations, many of them cultural, are doing everything possible to reduce the risk of their extinction.

Culture and Reinvention And the emotional infrastructure, what? Paula Moreno, Visible Hands President

In recent weeks we have spoken with a sense of urgency about the hospital infrastructure. As citizens, we learned that the number of beds and respirators are issues that should matter to us, as well as the welfare and protection of medical personnel (many still without receiving their payment for several months); we feel the imperative to take care of those who take care of us. We have shown that the hospital infrastructure has multiple flaws and, in some regions, is collapsed, but a different type of infrastructure continues to sustain us: culture, as the emotional and spiritual support of this country.

Without music, books, movies, movements, etc., how would we withstand the current conditions?

However, in a paradoxical way, the most obvious becomes the most invisible and secondary. In cultural matters, what sustains our mental and emotional health seems irrelevant compared to the dimensions of the shock measures that have been taken. Social distancing affects the nature of many cultural expressions based on contact and closeness, for which our cultural sector faces the great challenge of its reinvention; You must define a survival and sustainability strategy. In addition, it has the historical task of helping us understand, register and project this crisis, in which once again the cultural assumes the recreation of the human.

The transformation exercise that is coming is and will be largely a cultural endeavor. Answers that correspond to the scale of what is at stake are urgently needed. Colombia is a cultural powerhouse, and we cannot allow that essential infrastructure to weaken. While the nature of art and culture has been —and more so in our context— resistance, this is a moment for transcendence. Today, in the Pacific, a growth in forced recruitment by illegal groups is reported, children in the region do not have connectivity for virtual classes, and now the cultural organizations that generated a real alternative are beginning to disappear. You must reinvent yourself, but also create conditions for it.

The cultural agenda changed; there is no time to discuss the economy-culture dichotomy. The urgent thing is to preserve something basic and essential: cultural life. We have a unique opportunity to reduce cultural inequalities, which are also structural, to act in those municipalities where digital is not applied and culture is food and life preservers. As André Malraux said: “Culture is what, after death, continues to be life.”

And music, what for? Darwin Perea Master’s Scholar in Cultural Management, responsible for Visible Hands Culture

A song in times of confinement becomes a melody that embraces, accompanies, and provides unanticipated advice. A quarantined song can be like that friend who is always by your side when you need him, who makes you laugh and, at the same time, cry. In this time that we are going through, a note, an interval or a chord can change in a sudden remedy for any ailment.

Mandatory quarantine has raised levels of depression and anxiety. Many have found in these pentagram broadcasts a soundscape of refuge and calm. The musical pieces that we play on social networks have become the air that many

breathe to find peace and avoid stress. Jordi Savall, a specialist in early music, shares a question in his writings: “How is it possible that enslaved people still wanted to sing and dance? The answer is very simple: singing and dancing, to the rhythm of music, opened a space for expression and freedom.”

The lack of state support has pushed us as a union to seek new routes to obtain resources. I must admit that these aids meet some needs, but they are insufficient and keep us uncertain. Mariachis have figured out how to bring serenades, sometimes virtually. In our Pacific the streets of the neighborhoods are navigated at the mercy of gifts from residents. Others play to gain more followers or recognition, or simply out of a desire to interact with their listeners.

Creativity and the characteristic of musicians has transcended to incredible levels throughout the quarantine. The union has been more united when it comes to generating content as it has been the best way to feel free. Freedom that implies happiness for the musicians; Without thinking, we communicate it to everyone who connects to see us.

In the Pacific, the difficulties are greater, since we lack optimal connectivity to show and disseminate all the richness of our ancestral music. Freedom is the most longed for dream that our ancestors had and we still long for it. Amid the daily “reinventing” to which we are subjected, a term that already falls ill in the musical brotherhood, there are many lessons. The union that we have won will be useful to demand that the State pass laws that protect musicians and the entire cultural sector. In addition, collective creation allows disruptive ideas to be distilled for the benefit of all.

I want to remind you that, at critical moments, great ideas are born. This is an opportunity to think, rethink, create, and act. It is time to motivate our intellect and enliven the box of ideas. In one of his songs, maestro Jairo Varela Martínez says that, “in good times and in bad there is always a laugh.” For this moment, colleagues, I am giving you a comma so that we can continue writing a beautiful musical story for ourselves and for our territories. May the desire to dream never fade.

The importance of dreaming and visualizing what we want, Daydreaming is dreaming with your feet on the ground, to create concrete possibilities. Dreaming, in fact, was a word used in ancient times as a synonym for “viewing with unusual clarity, order and meaning” images and events that were to be realized. So dreaming is being visionary.

Therefore, it is time to be a visionary from a moral context that does not exclude anyone, that does not segregate or separate, but rather one that thinks of each future generation as a group of beings connected to a natural environment who must be respected and allow to transcend.

The Senegalese economist and writer Felwine Sarr recalled that, in his country, to face the coronavirus crisis, academics created working groups by fields to anticipate the impact in terms of transport, tourism, commerce, culture, and the informal sector. They were able to envision the best measures to guarantee their inhabitants more sustainable and stable income. “It is a great demonstration of the impact that civil society can have. When the world predicted the worst, we worked to provide a response tailored to the specificities of our societies… The pandemic showed us the radical need to change our relationship with ecology, overconsumption, and economic and industrial excess. The change will have to be expressed in concrete terms, through social action and collective force.”

That’s right, and the dynamics show it. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I have a dream.” He said it with conviction, intensity, and with all the intention put into his words. His dream was so powerful that it transformed the known, broke ground, and bridged a momentous gap in history. Visible Hands also has big dreams. Once the current decade of transition is over, this new decade begins in which our dream will lead to the transformation of leaderships and will open the way to transcendence. The leaders connected to the Visible Hands networks are, in themselves, visionaries: they have a vision of the future dreamed of and forged by the resistance; They have talent and elements of judgment, desire and courage; they strive to change the current topics and difficulties to convert them into opportunities. We dream of a possible future built from the margins. We will work to make it so. We will lead that change so that it can be.

Some visions to build those new exact and concrete futures for this new decade are:

A commitment to intercultural and diverse leadership, avant-garde in its integrality. That is, a leadership that allows those who have remained outside to enter, both locally, regionally, and nationally as well as globally. This leadership is Afro-descendant, indigenous, mestizo, of the population in special conditions or persons with disabilities, as well as mostly women. This leadership is called to indicate the word elite and its negative connotation of exclusion, corruption and abuse for one of service, efficiency, and effective transformations. Its purpose is to put identities as active and integrate their power with moral and ethical authority. In our first decade we were more Afro descendant. In the next one we will be more comprehensive. We need multiple spokespersons on multiple agendas.

As we have a commitment to the margins, we also commit to the other Pacific countries of the national and global geography. Our natural transition will be to continue in the Pacific but expanding our work to the Caribbean and critical urban centers, such as Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali. Consolidating our work on both coasts will be the goal. We will seek to articulate it with the nodes of diversity that correspond to the margins of great centers of power. Likewise, we will continue with our exchange and articulation with the African diaspora, even proposing a permanent international platform for Afroinnova, with nodes on the African continent, Europe, the United States, and Brazil. Colombia has a role to play in the next phase that opens towards racial equity.

A vision focused on changing patterns, as well as seeking and materializing new solutions to old problems. A leadership network that is a catalyst for macro tasks to transform collapses such as public health, educational quality, water, and basic sanitation coverage, the formal economy, as well as working for the existence of a strengthened civil society. That is, everything that does not wait.

narratives but also realities, as well as to give a line in the new development models, as well as in practices that define the political, social, and economic destiny of the region. We dream of a cultural sector that remains a retaining wall, but also a project to promote new forms of thought and action.

Visible Hands, strengthened as a cutting-edge non-profit organization, and with a financial base for the next decade, will have a dispersed team and a headquarters that will become a great leadership center with a global perspective, and at the same time, in a cultural center, of thought and a lasting meeting place for those leaderships from the margins of the country. There it will be possible to co-create, exchange experiences, see each other, recognize each other, and articulate.

Our future is poetic and aesthetic. We are visualizing it with the cultural and environmental richness of the communities and with the leaderships that have nurtured us with their hope during all these years. We also envision it with the resources, institutions, and practices that show that the future of the country arises from the margins, and that these will become centers of development and their own visions. That’s what we are betting on.