At SIDOC Foundation, we believe that peace is built in everyday life; in neighborhoods; and in small decisions that transform people’s lives. The city of Cali, capital of Valle del Cauca and the epicenter of the Urban Futures program, has been the place where this conviction is put into practice. Here, we support communities and young people who, amid complex social and territorial contexts, are creating new opportunities to imagine and build a different future by transforming the city’s food system into one that is more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable.
By: Rocío Gutiérrez Cely, Director of Peacebuilding and Violence Intervention at the SIDOC Foundation, a partner in our Urban Futures program.
Our partnership with Hivos opened a deeper dialogue on the relationship between food systems and peacebuilding. This exchange helped us to recognize that the way food is produced, distributed, and accessed is closely linked to dynamics of power, exclusion, and conflict. At the same time, it can also also provide concrete opportunities for social transformation rooted in local territories. From this perspective, food systems emerge as a powerful entry point for strengthening social cohesion and social justice.
Our work in Cali
This approach drives the Urban Futures program. In 2025 alone, the program strengthened the technical, educational, and operational capacities of 15 community gardens and 40 green enterprises working to transform Cali’s food system through sustainable, solidarity-based, and territorially rooted practices. Beyond improving food access and livelihoods, these initiatives have become spaces for collaboration and trust in neighborhoods historically affected by exclusion and violence, contributing to everyday conditions for peace.
In parallel, an educational campaign in two public schools reached more than 90 students, fostering critical awareness around the right to food, environmental stewardship, and the impact of everyday choices. Another 15 young people engaged in the Ideas and Policy Advocacy Lab, where they strengthened capacities in critical analysis, strategic communication, and civic participation.
The role of young people
From these spaces, young people are increasingly engaging in public debates and decision-making processes related to Cali’s food system, bringing their voices, needs, and proposals into city-level discussions. Through close accompaniment with the Urban Futures program, they are recognized not as beneficiaries, but as strategic actors capable of proposing solutions, mobilizing collective action, and sustaining long-term change.
This journey also represented significant institutional strengthening for SIDOC Foundation. Urban Futures has enabled us to review internal practices, consolidate technical and strategic capacities, and project our work with a longer-term vision, strengthening our ability to respond to the complex challenges of the territories where we work.
The grants implemented within the framework of the Urban Futures program have been key in scaling impact and deepening collaboration with other organizations. Beyond financial resources, these alliances are built on trust and shared learning, enabling capacities to be adapted, co-created, and transferred across contexts. They have also helped make visible, and share, the strengths developed through more than 20 years of social work in Cali.
Today, we reaffirm that peacebuilding requires alliances that strengthen local capacities and weave networks of collective action. When real opportunities exist, peace ceases to be a promise and becomes a tangible path forward, built together, from everyday practices and local realities.
