The Rural Alternative School in El Tarra, Norte de Santander, is the first in the country to support reincorporation with a mixed approach, combining individual productive projects with training activities and collaborative commercial efforts. El Tarra is a municipality known as “The heart of Catatumbo”. This is a key region for peacebuilding efforts, strongly affected by the armed conflict before and after the 2016 Peace Agreement, with a long presence of crops for illicit use, a strategic location on the Colombian-Venezuelan border, and very rich in natural resources.
60 ex-combatants from the Caño Indio Territorial Space for Training and Reincorporation (ETCR) migrated to El Tarra with the intention of developing their reincorporation process with individual livestock projects. The UN Verification Mission invited PASO Colombia to support these reincorporated, using the experience gathered in other ERAs in the country. PASO adapted the ERA model, originally developed to support collective projects, and is now implementing a new perspective to support individual initiatives, taking advantage of the benefits that rural collaboration platforms have demonstrated elsewhere.
25 ex-combatants and 3 rural farmers from the region are the initial participants of the ERA. They receive training tailored to their needs at the La Aurora farm, where they learn about sustainable livestock from the rural farming experience that has been carried out there for five years. Together with this training, they will establish protein banks (areas planted with legumes and grasses) for cattle feeding, they will receive support for the natural genetic improvement of dual-purpose cattle, and an agricultural technician will offer individual support supporting the particular needs of each farm.
One of the purposes of the ERA is the organization of the participants in a Livestock Committee, with which they carry out marketing initiatives, and manage to establish a network of buyers under fair trade conditions.
This ERA has the support of the UN Verification Mission and the Agency for Reintegration and Normalization (ARN) and the El Tarra Mayor's Office.