Moira Birss

Moira Birss is a current volunteer with the Fellowship of Reconciliation Colombia Program’s human rights accompaniment team, which works with grassroots organizations and communities in Colombia that are resisting and creating living alternatives to Colombia’s decades-old internal conflict.

The Red Juvenil of Medellín, Colombia

The Red Juvenil uses antimilitarist street theater and music to connect with widely divergent youth and take their message to the military and the public.

In one of the improvised poor neighborhoods that cling to the bare mountain slopes on the edge of Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city, the paramilitary was preparing to forcibly recruit a local youth named Alberto. Most people can’t imagine resisting such a demand. But Alberto said no, he was not interested, so the paramilitary threatened him. Alberto contacted the Red Juvenil de Medellín (Medellín Youth Network), with whose support he organized a community bonfire in his neighborhood.