PORTRAIT – Despite the peace signed in 2016 with the Farc, violence continues to undermine part of the country. Yet there are thousands of them to commit to improving the lives of their fellow citizens, despite the risks.
Gerson Florez has always lived in Usme, a poor and rural district of Bogota. In 1998 he traveled to the department of Norte de Santander for a vacation with his father and a friend. There, he meets children his own age and spends his time playing football. Fifteen days later, he hears the name of the village where he was on vacation pronounced on television. His attention is drawn and he listens: two children jumped on an anti-personnel mine, two children with whom he had played, right next to the field where he had kicked the ball. He is only eleven years old but he feels he cannot sit idly by.
Three months later, his father received a surprising phone call:I am the adviser to the first lady, Madame Samper“. Hugo Flores does not believe his ears. He struggles to understand. In fact, his son Gerson had written several letters to the President of the Republic, Ernesto Samper, to tell him that action had to be taken to defend children from the conflict that has pitted the Farc guerrillas against the Colombian State since the beginning of the 1960s. . Gerson will be the youngest participant in the council for peace organized by the Colombian government in 1998.
Mines antipersonnelles
This conference will have no effect on the internal war from which the country is suffering but has highlighted this little child who works in his corner on projects to help child victims of anti-personnel mines. In 2002, two Norwegian MPs nominated Gerson Flores for the Nobel Peace Prize.
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But Gerson never allowed himself to be blinded by these short-lived tributes. He continued to live in his neighborhood of Usme and to act to help its inhabitants. Today, he is proud of his baby: Cop Colombia. It was initially an association to promote the practice of football. But it is about much more than that. “Since 2008, we have supported nearly 2,800 children, he explains. For us, our football club is not about looking for future champions. For us, it is a question of helping children to emancipate themselves and to overcome the economic and family brakes that could prevent their development. So we are very sensitive to gender equality. Our training is done by mixing girls and boys.»
International tournaments
With his association, Gerson has managed to take his teams to tournaments all over the world: Mexico, China, Denmark, the Netherlands. But also in France in 2019 where its women’s team for 14-15 year olds won a trophy at the Paris World game. Gerson is so proud of it that his voice chokes a little when he recalls this trophy. “It’s true, it’s a bit of a consecration for us. A great emotion.” To finance itself, Cop Colombia juggles with food stamps, state aid and subsidies that it scrounges here and there. For trips abroad she organizes a lottery.
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Cop Colombia (Builders of Peace) is not a football club. It is an integration tool for Gerson. Its actions are aimed at families as well as children and adolescents. “We realized that some were arriving very weak. In fact, they hadn’t had a meal before coming. We have therefore developed a program with the Bogota food bank to offer food at affordable prices for the poor population of the neighborhood.”
When Gerson realizes that many teenagers get the baccalaureate but start working immediately without seeking higher education, he wonders “I realized that almost no high school graduate in the neighborhood was thinking of studying. Why ? Because at 18, family pressure means that you have to earn money and no longer be a burden on your family. So I approached universities that agreed to join our program A scholarship for everyones.»
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Social inequalities in Colombia are reaching frightening levels that the Covid 19 pandemic has accentuated. According to the government statistics institute DANE, 17 million Colombians out of a total population of 50 million live on less than 2 dollars a day. 8.8 million people work in the informal sector and therefore have no social protection. This situation pushes many Colombians to commit themselves to defend the population. They are indigenous leaders to defend their lands, union leaders to defend workers’ rights, environmental leaders to prevent the destruction of the natural environment. Several dozen of them are killed each year because their activity hinders the guerrillas, local mafias, large landowners and local authorities who sometimes have agreements with armed groups.
«In the Usme region, the difficulties accumulate, details Gerson Flores. Very rural, it is conducive to illegal occupation actions in a country where the armed conflict has displaced thousands of people. We are experiencing a multiplication of problems: micro-trafficking, child labor, banditry, hooliganism, school absenteeism. Many children cannot attend college because their parents have no choice but to send them to work to supplement the household income. It is a particularly deprived district. The fragmentation of the social fabric creates great instability both for individuals and families.»
In 2021, COP Colombia received the special jury prize for its initiatives in favor of peace and sport awarded by the Peace and Sport awards.