The hope that heals.

• Author: Ambrus, Steven
• Position: Creative community programs in Medellin, Colombia

Creative community programs in Medellin, Colombia, encourage former drug criminals and militias to rejoin society as the city moves toward a brighter future

It is nine o'clock in the morning, and the Andean air is beginning to prickle and sting as social worker Hernando Ramos descends an escarpment into La Iguana, a poor barrio in southwestern Medellin, Colombia. Ramos points out the high grass on a hill where militia members once dumped bodies and a space under a bridge where teenagers once gathered to smoke marijuana or cocaine. He recalls a time when daily shootouts made the barrio impassable.

But climbing down into La Iguana, there are no signs of violence anywhere. Boys in shorts and T-shirts kick a dusty soccer ball through the streets. Old women sun themselves on the stoops of their homes. Giggling girls clutch at Ramos's hands. Everyone asks him about looking for work, training for work, or getting involved in an educational or barrio maintenance program.

La Iguana, once synonymous with drug addiction and murder, has become a place of hope. It has joined a process of peace and recovery in a city once known abroad only as the home of the vicious Medellin cocaine cartel, and of hundreds of trained assassins who killed presidential candidates, judges, policemen, and journalists in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

"You will see that there we don't have militarized streets or shootouts on street corners," declares the former mayor of Medellin, Luis Alfredo Ramos (no relation to Hernando), as he discusses a peace process of which La Iguana is only a small part. "There are many people," he continues, "who want to give up criminal activities, rejoin society, and retrain themselves so they can go back to work."

In the last year, hundreds of people have indeed given up their arms. Last May alone some 650 members of militias, illegal groups that arose in poor areas to combat drug trafficking and crime, signed agreements to become reintegrated into society. Many who had participated in beatings and summary executions are now cooperating with police as neighborhood watchmen and maintenance workers. Former assassins are in psychological group and occupational therapy programs, and erstwhile gang members are building wells, parks, and nurseries.

Ramos is so upbeat about the city's prospects that his administration has begun to promote tourism again. He is convinced that the peace process will only become stronger. "Many barrios have gained a new tranquility," he says. "You don't see the same tension or the same level of crimes that you did in the past."

Observers credit the new atmosphere to the successful drug war fought by the administration of Colombia's former president, OAS secretary general Cesar Gaviria, against the Medellin cartel, which was long considered the fiercest of the world's narcotics organizations. Colombia's Bloque de Busqueda (Search Block), composed of hundreds of police and military, hunted for the Medellin cartel's boss, Pablo Escobar, for more than a year, killing him in December, 1993. They also killed and jailed many of his top lieutenants. As a result, the violence associated with drug trafficking receded from the poorest neighborhoods of the city. New horizons opened for people who once felt compelled to cooperate with criminal organizations. Released from its fetters, the indomitable spirit of the paisas, the people from Medellin and the larger state of Antioquia, took flight.

At the other end of the city, in...