Personally, PBI was the start of my career. I later did my PhD on gangs in Medellin, where I had contacts from organisations from my time at PBI. That process essentially launched me into academia where I still am. I have collaborated with a host of organisations across Latin America and the Caribbean, focusing on gangs and violence reduction in vulnerable communities. I now have my own PhD students, one of whom researches transitional justice in Colombia. The circle of life!
PBI has impacted me because during the year I gave my best and I had the opportunity to be in the field and learn from the team as well as from the people and organizations we accompanied. I developed communication, strategy, empathy and teamwork skills. A real political school
Mònica Pérez Masoliver
Colombia and Estado Español, 2012-ahora
I believe that a key function of PBI - apart from direct protection - is to help volunteers understand, perceive and feel the injustice experienced by people in the global south. If we then go to the countries of the global north we can use this experience to demand, promote, initiate changes in politics and also in daily life by demonstrating the connections between realities
Michael Kettelhoit
Colombia
It is essential to defend those who defend. PBI transformed my life; I totally changed my professional orientation.
Paco Simón Conejos
Colombia and Honduras, 2001, 2014, 2016, 2018
PBI is an NGO that I will always carry in my heart
Catiane Vander Kelen
Colombia, 2006-2009
PBI’s work is so important for you to see and feel what is happening and how you can act to open spaces and change it a little bit!
Susanna Lange
Colombia
PBI’s work is fundamental because it represents international solidarity with human rights defenders and a commitment to change the world. PBI offers an opportunity to grow as a person, in contact with human rights defenders who fight for human rights despite the risks they face, and because of the horizontal organizational structure that forces greater reflection and greater responsibility from each of its members
Vicente Vallies
Colombia, 2000-ahora
The Peace Community of San José de Apartadó was founded in the Urabá Antioqueño region of Colombia in 1997 in the midst of armed violence, forced displacement, and the murder of its leaders. It rejects the presence of all armed actors in its territories.
On 21st February 2005, eight people from the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, in north-west Colombia, were massacred, including three young children and community leader Luis Eduardo Guerra.