After Mayerly Sanchez's closest friend, 15-year-old Milton Piraguata, was stabbed to death in a gang fight, she vowed to find a way to stop street killings in Colombia. She had just turned 12.

In a country where homicide by gunshot is the leading cause of death (ahead of cancer, heart failure, and accidents), the now 17-year-old Sanchez says Christ's presence helps her to lead 100,000 children in a campaign that has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Violence has festered in Colombia for nearly four decades among paramilitary commandos, rebel guerrillas, and cocaine lords. The link between these factions and the hooded assassins who commit an estimated 85 percent of Colombia's murders is often unclear. In this urban briar patch, youth gangs flourish.

"All these gangs were in constant confrontation—one never knows what they are fighting over," Sanchez says. "Like a lot of people, Milton went out to watch what was going on, and he was facing a gang, or friends of that gang. In a fight, nothing and no one is respected—it was like they were going crazy, and he became a victim of watching what was happening."

Far from her speaking engagements to international audiences, Sanchez speaks to ct by telephone from World Vision offices in Bogotá. The staff has been sent home due to street disturbances amid a transportation strike; a friend of a World Vision employee has unlocked the door so Sanchez can call ct.

Occasionally a note of world-weariness creeps into her spirited voice—or maybe she is just tired of answering questions from the media. In any event, having spent much of her childhood fighting for peace amid often inexplicable bloodshed, at times she interrupts her breathless, lilting Spanish with a sigh.

"It's sad; it discourages you when you find out somebody has been killed," she says. "Besides the confusion of trying to figure out what has happened, many people have closed their ears to what we're doing—our work with kids to bring peace does not matter to them."

Periodic discouragement, however, does not overcome her. "Until my last breath, I'll keep working for peace," she says. "There are highs and lows but, no—you have to go on."

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Sprigs and Roots


While still 12, Sanchez joined the leadership of the Colombia Children's Movement for Peace, which had begun in 1996 under a United Children's Fund (UNICEF) initiative. Since age 7, she had been a sponsored child with World Vision, which joins churches, other organizations, and government officials in supporting the UNICEF initiative.

The Colombia Children's Movement for Peace provides kids with the tools to promote nonviolence to their peers and to their elected officials. In October 1996, the movement sponsored a poll in which 2.7 million Colombian children selected peace as their top priority. This inspired more than 10 million adults to vote in favor of a similar Citizen's Mandate for Peace, Life, and Freedom a year later—the largest number of votes ever cast for an initiative in Colombia.

At the same time, the movement pushed the government to establish "peace zones," where paramilitary squads and guerrillas are prohibited from using children in their conflicts.

After a visit by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor, the Colombia Children's Movement for Peace under Sanchez's leadership has been nominated for the distinguished prize in 1998, 1999, and 2000. It strikes at the root causes of violence—poverty, narcotics trade, and turf battles—literally under adults' noses.

Through World Vision's Peacebuilders program, Sanchez and her preteen teams present neighborhood kids with alternatives to gangs—education, skills training, and recreation. Activities and games reinforce the message of nonviolence, as do the movement's rallies, marches, media campaigns, and art contests.

The teams go into schools with projects and drama that speak of peace as children to children, which Sanchez says is more effective than adults speaking to children. The message of peace also goes from child to adult, from the school dramas that parents attend to a visit some of the children had with Colombian President Andrés Pastrana.

Through their art and drama, the children teach parents to affirm them and, when necessary, to discipline them in love rather than in uncontrolled anger. This helps create a nonviolent culture, Sanchez says. Moreover, this parental affirmation is important for children to build their lives on hard work and respect, rather than seeking status and security in gangs, she says.

In Sanchez the movement has found an inspired blend of initiative and skill to organize rallies, lead conferences, and lobby congressmen, even as she juggles school, sports, and a part-time job. Several days of her week begin with an 8 a.m. meeting of two hours with other child leaders, who then supervise their own groups of children in activities and games imbued with lessons of nonviolence. Leadership and cells multiply as each child eventually trains four others to lead groups.

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Getting Colombian legislators to listen has been key for the movement, and World Vision Colombia has equipped the children with communication skills and supplies to make their voices heard in the adult world of politics. In a land where children as young as 8 are recruited as soldiers into warring factions, Sanchez's teams have encouraged kids to stand up for their rights.

"When a child speaks, he speaks from the heart," Sanchez says. "He's not speaking to speak. He's saying what he feels. He is a reflection of the reality of his country and the country he dreams of."

Childlike Faith


The second of three daughters of a Bogotá bus driver, Sanchez grew up in a town of blood and dust. Cazuca, her mountainside hometown outside of Bogotá, began as squatter's territory for war refugees. The village now has electricity and running water, and most of the roads are paved. The drive-by shootings of her preteen years have abated, but if she stays late at a friend's house, she usually spends the night rather than risk assault or robbery.

Sanchez became the first in her family to attend university when she began studies in journalism this year at the private Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (with financial help from World Vision) in Bogotá. She plans to continue working in the children's peace movement in spite of her new academic demands.

She works under difficult and dangerous conditions—the more time she spends in the community, the more likely the chance of her taking a stray bullet. But her faith in teamwork and the power of children massing together leaves no room for self-consideration.

A vertical trust in God intersects this horizontal faith in the power of children united.

"God is the one taking care of us, because to work and speak of peace in Colombia is not very safe—he's always with us," she says. "When we are sad, we take refuge in him, and it's God that gives us the will and strength, and he's the one who puts the words in our mouths every time we express ourselves."

She felt the presence of God most keenly, she says, when she began working in the children's peace movement.

"When you realize that in reality the Lord Jesus Christ has touched your life, the change is total," she says. "It's difficult to describe in words, but the transformation of your life is so marvelous that you realize it and everyone around you notices as well."

Active in an evangelical church before it folded, she has returned to the Las Villas Catholic church in which she grew up. Church teaching is important, but Sanchez says she learns more from practicing her faith in the community. There, Christ enters her heart in fresh ways.

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"In everything I do, I have to give everything to him, and he's always going to be there supporting us," she says, now barely stopping to breathe. "And you can't go wrong, simply because he's there to console you when you're not doing well."

Reality Check


The seeds of peace are bearing fruit in quiet ways throughout scattered communities, but Sanchez longs for nothing less than nationwide peace.

"In reality, there's a way to go nationally," she says. "We are working in the areas where we live, but we are not yet bringing this work together so that people can really see the mobilization necessary to transform the country into a culture of peace."

Heady as this vision may be, Sanchez is not naïve. Born amid bloodshed, she looks beyond political proposals to the greater hope of hearts transformed in childhood. At 17, with God beside and before her, she speaks with authority.

"I can't tell you that the movement has had a large impact on a national level, but indeed it has in certain parts where we are working in our communities," she says. "In our families, which is where we begin, a culture of peace is beginning to be generated—then on the street where we live, then in the neighborhood, and from there it can spread nationally."

Cultivating a culture of peace in the family means, in part, discouraging domestic violence through the art and drama projects. The cycle of violence, cynicism, and skepticism may not be vanquished in one generation, but hearts are softening, Sanchez says.

"Not everyone is unplugging their ears," she says, "and those who listen to our message say, 'All right, but'—as if they have a small part of them wanting to learn more, even while they're saying, 'How can we quiet them down?' But they end up persuaded and backing the movement."

The movement has been growing in true grassroots fashion—by word of mouth, one child telling another. According to Sanchez, kids are telling each other, "Look, these are your rights. But these are your responsibilities, too—try to meet them."

The children themselves, she says, mediate God to her. "You're discouraged, and there's a child that comes and says, 'Teacher, teacher, I really liked your activity yesterday morning,'" she says.

Through such countless details, she says, God shows his power and renews her spirit.

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The Long Road Ahead


Systemic evil underlying violence will not collapse in one generation, but these kids are not interested in waiting around for a better future. Addressing a World Vision forum in Washington, D.C., last May, Sanchez made it clear that children want a better present.

"You can just feel the joy as they are regaining hope and trust in their own country," she said. "Because even though we have many difficulties, we know that we are a 'present'—and not 'the future' as the adults say. We are in this present and we are going to continue to work so that day by day our lives become better."

Back in Bogotá, she prepares for a long walk home that even by bus would take 90 minutes. Just as kids have united to demand rights and peace, she says, they also try to band together when walking the streets. On this late afternoon during the transportation strike, however, she says she will have to walk home alone.

She pauses, silent for a long interval. But when the conversation resumes, her zeal gathers momentum and addresses the reality of potential danger.

"I believe we are instruments of the peace of God—we have to finish our work," she says. "And he's always going to be there."

Jeff M. Sellers is an associate editor of CT.





Related Elsewhere:

A CNN special report on the children of the world looked at Colombia's Soldiers of Peace.

A 1998 article in World Vision'sToday magazine focused on Sanchez's commitment to work for peace in her lacerated land

Marie Claire has a short profile of Sanchez in an article series on young women making a difference.

Sara Cameron's Out of War: True Stories from the Front Lines of the Children's Movement for Peace in Colombia tells the story of the Children's Movement for Peace through nine intimate first-person narratives.

CNN's Colombia: War Without End looks at the violence gripping the country.

For more news on Colombia, see Yahoo's full coverage.

Christianity Today's coverage of violence in Colombia includes:

Risking Life for Peace | Caught between rebels, paramilitaries, and crop-dusters, peacemaking Christians put their lives on the line in violent Colombia. (September 11, 2001)
Plan for Peace in Colombia Is a Plan 'For Death,' Say Church Activists | Will U.S. military assistance in destroying coca fields only increase violence? (Aug. 15, 2000)
Death in the Night | Colombia's pastors endure extortion, kidnappings, and threats as they plant churches and help the poor in a war zone. (June 6, 2000)
Colombia's Bleeding Church | Despite the murders of 120 church leaders, Christians are fighting for peace in one of the world's most violent nations. (May 18, 1998)

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