{"id":13979,"date":"2012-09-10T09:03:47","date_gmt":"2012-09-10T13:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=13979"},"modified":"2014-09-17T11:49:39","modified_gmt":"2014-09-17T15:49:39","slug":"fresh-grads-serve-in-war-torn-areas-of-colombia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2012\/fresh-grads-serve-in-war-torn-areas-of-colombia\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresh Grads Serve in War-Torn Areas of Colombia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Months after earning their undergraduate degrees from Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in 2011, Jessica Sarriot, Larisa Zehr and William C. Morris headed 2,000 miles south to work alongside Colombians seeking to emerge from decades of warfare and destitution.<\/p>\n

EMU\u2019s three graduates joined seven others for two years of service in Colombia under the SEED program of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to Witness for Peace<\/a> \u2013 headed for the last 25 years by social worker Sharon Hostetler \u201980 \u2013 Colombia has the largest refugee population in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than 5.2 million Colombians have been internally displaced by right-wing paramilitaries often working in conjunction with Colombia\u2019s U.S. funded and trained military, left-wing insurgents, indiscriminate aerial fumigations, large-scale extractive industries and agro-fuel production,\u201d says the Witness for Peace website.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt every turn, U.S. corporations have benefited from the violence and mass displacement, most notably Coca Cola, Chiquita, Dole and Drummond Coal.\u201d<\/p>\n

A variety of peace-and-justice groups, including Justapaz of the Colombian Mennonite churches, are helping with the recovery effort at the grassroots level.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are amazing EMU graduates, doing great work,\u201d said EMU nursing<\/a> professor and chair of the MCC U.S. Board of Directors, Ann Hershberger<\/a>, who visited Sarriot, Zehr and Morris earlier this summer. \u201cThey are accompanying churches and villages displaced by the violence of the last 10 to12 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hershberger, who has an oversight role with MCC, was in Colombia as part of an MCC study tour. In the spring of 2013, she and her husband Jim will be leading a couple of dozen EMU students to Colombia for an accredited cross-cultural experience.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Zehr (pictured), Sarriot and Morris are recent EMU grads who are under the SEED program of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) to work alongside Colombians seeking to emerge from decades of warfare and destitution. Photo provided by Larisa Zehr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The SEED participants in Colombia are expected to gain understanding of the economic, political, cultural, and religious factors feeding violence and poverty. Living among the general population, they work for peace, justice, equality, and livelihoods.<\/p>\n

Sarriot, a U.S. citizen who has lived on three continents, is based in Medellin, the country\u2019s second largest city and birthplace of the drug cartels. A peacebuilding and development<\/a> major, Sarriot works with the Sanctuary Peace Church Network of Antioquia, which is comprised of 12 evangelical churches and organizations. One of them is an Anabaptist\/Mennonite congregation that supports a group of war victims through community-building and workshops on trauma healing.<\/p>\n

Sarriot is also running 12 workshops in a men\u2019s prison under the auspices of the Prison Fellowship. Likely some of her students were members of paramilitaries, perhaps even soldiers who victimized those in need of trauma healing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I\u2019ve realized living in such a violent and complicated urban environment,\u201d said Sarriot, \u201cis how important it is as Christians to understand Jesus\u2019 call to nonviolence in all aspects of our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that Jesus\u2019 teachings tend to \u201cconflict with what our culture, media and government tell us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morris, a business administration<\/a> major from Charlottesville, Va., is assigned to the city of El Carmen de Bolivar, where he works for a local church and a regional food cooperative. In both cases he is helping displaced farmers organize projects related to food security and general economic development, such as a newly opened farmers\u2019 market. He is also leading youth Bible studies with a focus on life planning and career callings.<\/p>\n

Many of the farmers Morris works with were driven out of their farms in the surrounding mountains during the civil war. Morris is involved with community land purchasing for small farmers.<\/p>\n

Zehr, from Pittsburgh, works in the remote mountainous community of Berruguita, which got caught in the struggle for territory between paramilitaries and guerillas in 2000. Most of the residents fled the area but many of them have gradually returned.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy work is accompanying the community as they attempt to organize both to demand their rights as citizens and as victims of the armed conflict,\u201d said Zehr, who (like Sarriot) majored in peacebuilding and development. As an example, Zehr cited their pursuit of improvements to the community\u2019s rutted access road. Also, in the spirit of the government\u2019s land-reform program, the community is fighting for their right to collective land ownership.<\/p>\n

Zehr also helps supervise a small-loan program for local farmers and helps supply produce to the farmers\u2019 market that Morris helped launch. In addition, she works with a group of local mediators who are developing another way of dealing with conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we aren\u2019t careful and if we don\u2019t take care of our security,\u201d she explained, \u201cthe violence could begin all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Months after earning their undergraduate degrees from Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in 2011, Jessica Sarriot, Larisa Zehr and William C. Morris headed 2,000 miles south to work alongside Colombians seeking ... read more about Fresh Grads Serve in War-Torn Areas of Colombia<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":13984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[266,5591,14145],"tags":[7923,17219,13636,6100,5690,14557,14556],"feature":[],"class_list":["post-13979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-business-and-leadership","category-peacebuilding-and-development","tag-ann-hershberger","tag-business-and-economics","tag-jessica-sarriot","tag-mennonite-central-committee","tag-peacebuilding","tag-sharon-hostetler","tag-william-c-morris"],"yoast_head":"\nFresh Grads Serve in War-Torn Areas of Colombia - EMU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2012\/fresh-grads-serve-in-war-torn-areas-of-colombia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fresh Grads Serve in War-Torn Areas of Colombia - EMU News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Months after earning their undergraduate degrees from Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in 2011, Jessica Sarriot, Larisa Zehr and William C. 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