Sometimes you have to see things for
yourself. I had heard all the stories about Medellin’s scary and
violent past and its (very recent) miraculous turn-around. I heard
about the escalators,
the flying
cable car, and Medellin being named the most
Innovative
city in the world. And I heard about the UN
hosting its 7th
World Urban Forum in the “Spring City” just
a few weeks before I arrived. Medellin is all the buzz in the urban
and international development world for the reasons mentioned above.
But what makes Medellin special isn’t in its buildings, public
transit, or beautiful libraries. It’s in its people.
Paisas (people from Medellin) have to
be some of the most resilient people in the world. Medellin used to
be the murder capital of the world with a homicide
rate of 381 deaths per 100,000 people. Drug
cartels and the gangs that work for them, ran the city, where many
neighborhoods were off limits, even to the police! Now those same
neighborhoods are becoming shining lights of inspiration, hope, and
resilience and I was fortunate enough to witness some of it.
Resilience is one of my favorite words
and something I believe the world needs a lot more of. I am the
President
and Co-founder of an urban agriculture
non-profit that teaches people all over the world how to sustain
their communities through the use of space intensive vertical
farming. Can
YA Love was created with the intent of helping
people meet their most basic necessities (like food) so that they can
be more resilient when outside forces like droughts or financial
speculation raise the cost of food. For billions of people, even a
small increase in food prices can mean serious food insecurity.
 | |
| Ibeth Rios watering the Growing Pillar |
Can YA Love's vertical farms can be
used in the most densely populated slums on Earth, are separate from
the ground (which is often contaminated), can produce a lot of food
in a little space, require less maintenance, and are accessible for
the elderly and disabled. Can YA Love’s mission also includes using
natural methods, aerobic composting, and sourcing local materials
wherever we work. After learning of ACJ’s work around
environmental sustainability and their ecological farm from my wife
Terri, I saw an immediate synergy between the two organizations.
With the help of many volunteers and
staff from the YMCA of Greater Toronto and ACJ-YMCA Medellin, we were
able to build two vertical farms in Colombia that are growing various
types of leafy greens and herbs. One is a “Growing Wall”, which
we attached to a concrete wall at ACJ’s community centre in the
city of Medellin.
 |
| Growing Wall at ACJ Centre in Comuna 13 |
And the other is a “Growing Pillar”,
a 5 foot tall cylinder that stands alone, at their farm about an hour
outside of Medellin. The staff at ACJ are showing the vertical farm
to visitors so that they can build their own versions back in the
city where they live. This is exactly the
effect we at Can YA Love want to
have--a decentralized, autonomous, DIY movement around urban
agriculture. From what I saw in Medellin, I am confident that we
will be seeing some Pillars and Walls growing (pun intended)
throughout the city.
 |
| Growing Pillar at the farm, "La Selva" |
 |
| Ibeth Rios teaching women about the Growing Pillar |
I was happy to bring an idea I am very
passionate about to my new friends in Colombia but I was
more excited to see all the ways
everyday people in Medellin work to improve their quality of life. I
saw gardens and bricks made out of plastic, I saw young people
starting gardens at their schools or right in the street, I saw young
artists depicting the brutal reality of violence in street art, I saw
hopeful teenagers using Hip Hop to spread a message of non-violence
and positivity, I
saw independent radio stations for the
people and by the people, and in all these ventures I saw esperanza
(hope) as the force that keeps them going.
Resilience is the capacity to recover
quickly from a challenging or difficult situation. After decades of
violence in Medellin, this fancy word is just a way of life for
Paisas. But it's more than violence that Paisas have had to deal
with. There is not an adequate waste collection system in the city.
This means there is lots of trash, particularly plastic, on the
streets. Plastic takes hundreds to thousands of years to decompose
and is made of toxic chemicals that are very harmful to the
environment. Here in North America we send our plastic problem
elsewhere...to a recycling facility or the landfill. We don't see
the consequences of consuming so much plastic. But in many places in
the world it is right in front of your eyes, everyday. To combat
this problem, Paisas decided to use this abundant and free material
to grow plants, to make art, and to use as bricks for landscaping.
Although plastic is not the ideal material for any of these uses, the
fact that it is free and abundant is a big advantage in a city where
there are many people without other resources.
 |
| Gardens made out of plastic bottles by La Morada aka "The Purple House" |
One more example of resilience before I
close. Myself, Coel from the YMCA GTA and Cesar from ACJ-Medellin,
went to visit an independent radio station in Medellin’s Comuna 4.
The station was small but what struck me was how nice and new all the
equipment looked. The booth where the DJ was working had
soundproofed walls, brand new microphones, two computers (and two
radio stations) going simultaneously, and lots of other cool looking
gear. The DJ and founder of the station told us its history.
En
Lace, is an online radio station that plays
strictly Hip Hop. But what was interesting to me, was it didn't start
out that way. It started out as a community station that transmitted
over the airwaves like your average radio station. The station
primarily focused on the issues of Comuna 4 and often times asked
people to call in to help decide music selection and decisions for
the station as a whole. The staff behind the station (which had a
different name at the time) were all volunteers. It was a radio
station that was needed in the community and the community respected
it. But by the time we visited, the station had been financially
prohibited from transmitting over the airwaves, had gone through
different names, and even had a different business model.
Apparently, the station needed to pay some kind of licensing fee to
the city, and when the big radio stations heard they hadn't, they
were shut down. But here we were standing in the studio, talking to
the founder.
 |
| Coel on the left, me on the right. |
With
the help of another radio station (from Chile I think), a different
business model (now strictly online), some startup funds from the
city's innovative
social budget,
and the community itself, a radio station was up and running again.
I thought this was another beautiful example of the resilience and
determination I witnessed in the people of Medellin. They have the
best kind of hope you could ask for. A hope that is backed up with
action. If only we could all follow this example, we'd have a much
better world.
Randall Coleman
Director of Operations
r.coleman@canyalove.org
