| With
the idea that the Millennium
Development Goals are not just a government concern, a
team of IPS journalists decided to see how much an organised
community can do to fight poverty. They went to the jungle
region of Chocó, in north-western Colombia, a geo-strategic
place that has vast biodiversity, is rich in precious metals
and water resources, and inhabited by Afro-Colombian and indigenous
communities. When the IPS reporters reached Quibdó, capital
of the Chocó department, an indigenous baby had died of malnutrition
in the arms of her mother, just three days earlier, on the
street outside the office of the Asociación Campesina Integral
del Atrato. IPS found that this rural development group's
great achievement has been to prevent the Atrato River communities
from being demolished by Colombia's warlords. |