Fundaciòn Dunna
Fundacion Dunna has been designing social innovation models for mental health, psychosocial attention, and peaceful coexistence for communities affected by violence in Colombia for more than 13 years. Their work is magic, macroscopic, and multidimensional—from the delivery of restorative protocols for ex-guerilla, paramilitary, and military combatant participants of the Colombian government’s social reintegration initiative to breaking psychosocial cycles within juvenile injustice and among survivors of gender-based violence.
More recently though, in response to the collapse of the social, economic, and political fabric of Venezuela, Dunna has designed thoughtful programmes of support that meet the unique needs of the many survivors of trauma that have been fleeing across the border in increasing numbers since 2017.
With generosity and in good faith, Dunna founder Maria Adelaida-Lopez and co-founder Natalia Quinones granted me exceptional access to capture unique oral histories that tenderly express the impact of their 'creative alternatives for peace' on the lives of displaced families in Colombia. The arc of change in all of the stories that I heard bent towards powerful healing, both nervous system deep and as a rippling legacy in community. It is the potent combination of mind:body methods and restorative practices pioneered by Dunna that has shaped the proud stories of resilience I had the rare opportunity to bear witness to.
This was extraordinary for me, thank you Fundación Dunna, I am committed to safeguarding these stories with respect and in the spirit with which they were shared with me.
Thanks for following. You’ll find more on radical therapeutic intervention, the complexities of generational trauma, and peacekeeping here and elsewhere as I continue to collate my research and listening.