José Marín
Whoever builds youth, builds a country.
I want young people to understand something, it is very easy when a person comes along, from a criminal gang or whatever, and talks nice things to them and convince them. Young people are a potential for conflict and crime. They go to the mountains with a different imagination, they think that picking up a rifle or a gun is a game. They go because they are children, they are fragile.
What we have to do is to look after the youth, the minds that are easy to conquer for war.
We always have to focus on the benefit, not on ourselves or on anything, but directly on the people of humanity.
My future in Colombia
I am a baker and I know how to work. I have always generated employment and I have always succeeded. Although my illness limits my ability to work, I can teach other people.
I want to help young people, give them opportunities and continue fighting for the country. Many of them let themselves be carried away by evil because they can’t find another opportunity,
They don’t know how to work because they haven’t been taught how to work. But many of them can get ahead with help, they can be somebody.
The youth build the country.
I was 17 when my father was murdered. We were peasants, we farmed and all our lives, my father was happy because he didn’t need anything else in life but to work, he lived happily on his farm, he worked in his home.
We had to flee, the whole family, all staggered in different places. I arrived in Bogotá to work in a bakery with some friends and I have continued working as a baker until now.
I didn’t choose to be a baker, I was lucky that life gave me this opportunity.
When a young person is poor, they can’t choose, they go at the first opportunity and often the first opportunity they get is to pick up a gun.
Mi Familia
They are my brothers and my mum. We are four siblings and we are all here in Spain.
My mum is the woman who has fought for our family, for her children, for her grandchildren day after day to bring them up.
We are very proud of her for being such a hard-working and unconditional mother.
I have a family that is very dear to me, we are all very close. And a mother who gives us an example, she is the driving force of our family. When I got sick in Colombia they helped me a lot.
We are calm again. I feel very calm
We have always been very optimistic and we never look back, we are not going to stay stuck there, we just have to keep it as a memory. My daughter is doing a specialisation in tax reform, she managed to finish university selling hamburgers from a cart. She is well known in Caquetá for her kindness.
We continue to move forward and believe in our Colombia, we continue to love our country. We went through the violence and they left us with nothing and we still come back, we take the bus and we continue to fight. If we taught values and principles to young people at university, they would learn to build, not to destroy. We must be the example for them.
Let’s build so that we can reap good fruits and look for a future.
We displaced people are the ones who suffer, but we can also build again. Look at the richness that Colombia has, the beauty that is Colombia.