Meaningful Travel with Colombia

At the Meaningful Travel Summit, more than 30 travel professionals got to experience tourist destinations and begin building a connection between the world and communities thriving for social change. While there is an endless amount of local entrepreneurs, our visitors only got to enjoy a handful of the stories and experiences Colombia has to share with us- a few of them are highlighted here. Beyond this list, the Meaningful Travel Map of Colombia connects us with more local entrepreneurs.

Moravia Tours: A woman-led community-based tourism initiative that has involved multiple stakeholders in the community to engage them in tourism activities.

La Cocina Movil: Woman-led project that aims to help mothers provide affordable and healthy food for their families. They have educational programs to teach mothers how to use more vegetables and less junk food in their daily diet.

Coojardicom: Woman-led social enterprise that manages a local greenhouse and provides gardening and landscaping services. They generate dignified income opportunities for mothers and use the work as part of the healing process.

Corporacion Mangle: A cultural and educational initiative created by young leaders of Moravia that uses capoeira to foster critical thinking, values and life skills in vulnerable communities.

Sonbata: Af ro-colombian artistic collective that combines hip-hop and autochthonous Colombian rhythms to make music a vehicle for identity and resistance. They work with children and youth mostly f rom Comuna 13 and use art as a tool for expanding the personal development alternatives of underserved populations.

Barrio Comparsa: Created by 4 victims of the conflict, this organization’s goal has been erasing the invisible borders created in part because of the drug trade in Medellin’s periferic neighborhoods. With parades and theater, they create moments of katharsis and social integration.

Union Latina: Art academy in which music, theater and dance are taught, specializing in salsa, tango and urban rhythms. They open the doors of the academy to children and youth who want to rewrite their life story and become professional dancers and social leaders.

Mezzon de la 55: Esperanza Murillo started off working as a housekeeper. Then, she started selling empanadas on the street and now her restaurant has become a local landmark for comfort food with the characteristic tastes of the Chocó fusioned with the local cuisine. This restaurant serves it’s community by providing great quality food for small portions at an affordable price, helping single mothers with long working hours to provide quality food for their children.

Berracas: Berracas is a Colombian expression to describe OK a courageous and skillful woman. That’s the spirit that Paola Rivas impints in her social enterprise. Through training in gastronomy and creating job opportunities, Berracas empowers women in underserved communities to gain economic self-sufficiency and empowerment to improve their life situation.

Embera Bead Project: Handmade Artisan Jewelry that gives back! All profits go to provide humanitarian relief for Embera families in need in the city. Embera provides workshops, trainings, food relief packets, nutritional supplements, and much more.

UVA El Tesoro: One of Medellin’s achievements has been the transformation of public space as part of its social urbanism strategy. The location of this dinner event is one of the 18 UVAs which are active inf rastructure of Medellin’s water supply service that were recently adapted to serve a double purpose. They became parks and community centers located on the surrounding mountains of the valley of Medellin.

Café Urbania: Urbania focuses on contributing to the social welfare of the 250 families in which they work through specialty coffee projects, building value together. Their objective is to commercialize high-quality coffees produced by communities in a state of vulnerability, compensating them with prices much higher than those of the market. Urbania works on projects with coffee growers who are victims of the conflict and with communities that are restoring illicit coffee crops.