PBI volunteer, Urabá, Colombia

Maira is a volunteer on an eight-person team accompanying communities that have been displaced, or have returned home after being displaced and suffer constant threats and harassment.

‘The alarm goes off at 7am. After a shower I begin my phone calls. I’ll be on my own in the office today because my fellow team members are doing accompaniments. A peculiarity of the Urabá team is that we are only together in the PBI house a couple of days a month. Volunteers spend their time with the two peace communities that we accompany.

First, I call the police and the army to inform them that we’ll be travelling along the Atrato River and ask them for information on the security situation. This is part of our policy of transparency and visibility. I note the calls and then finish writing a report of an accompaniment the previous day and send it to the other PBI sub-teams in Colombia, to the Project Office in London and our regional representatives in the US, Canada, and Brussels.

The phone rings…it’s the two volunteers on a 12-hour river journey asking for the information on the security situation that I got from the police and the military. ‘Everything’s fine.’ I tell them. Generally there isn’t any fighting on this particularly route; if there is, we cancel the trip.

The door bell rings, and in comes one of the coordinators of the Communities for Self Determination, Life & Dignity (CAVIDA) who tells me what’s going on in the community and the day’s news stories. The phone rings again: it’s an accompaniment request from the Peace Community to go and fetch one of their members from the airport and accompany them to the Community…and so the day goes on.