Latir with purpose
‘Member Stories’ is a series of articles issued by the Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (CSPPS) in direct collaboration with its members, featuring the work of its members.
Curious to learn more about our colleagues in Colombia? This week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Felipe Tamayo, Natalia Peláez Pérez, and Santiago Gutierrez—members of CSPPS’s first Latin American national team based in Colombia. In this article, we take a closer look at their inspiring work with Fundación LATIR, focusing on youth education and social inclusion
Follow this link to read the Spanish version! Latir con propósito | CSPPS
LATIR's Story
Colombia is a country of contrasts. While some cities experience innovation, development, and economic growth, widespread rural regions still face violence as a daily reality. Decades of armed conflict, structural inequality, limited state presence, and humanitarian crises have left deep scars in society. For millions of children, teenagers, and young people, growing up in Colombia has been characterised by unsafe environments, a lack of access to quality education, with no emotional support, and no real opportunities to imagine a different future.
In this context, the role of social organisations goes beyond assistance work. They become spaces for listening, care, symbolic healing, and transformative action. Fundación LATIR was founded in 2017 as a youth-led response to support the construction of cultures of peace in regions historically excluded from development.
LATIR is a youth-led non profit organisation that works with rural communities through peace education. Our mission is to strengthen the capacities of young people, teachers, and families so they can become active agents in building a sustainable and peaceful future. Since our founding, we have partnered with schools in areas affected by armed conflict, promoting holistic development and reconciliation starting in the classroom.
Our approach is comprehensive. We combine tools for social-emotional learning, teacher training, and community strengthening. Programs like SaberEs Colectivo reflect this commitment. In 2023, this initiative achieved a 21% reduction in conflicts that escalated into violence and a 53% increase in students’ perception of safety. These are tangible changes that emerge from daily work with students, teachers, and caregivers who choose to build peace in their immediate environments: school, family, and community.
LATIR's work on the YPS Agenda
In a country where young people have historically been marginalised, LATIR offers a different approach to advocacy, grounded in the territories, speaking with our own voice, and advancing concrete, youth-led proposals. We do more than implement educational projects. We also conduct research, create employment opportunities for young people, build strategic alliances, and defend the right to participate in decisions that shape our present and future.
Since 2022, we have been part of the global United Network of Young Peacebuilders (UNOY), and since 2025, a proud member of the Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (CSPPS). These alliances have strengthened our advocacy strategies and enabled us to engage in key spaces such as the Americas Youth Advocacy Team (AmYAT). In Colombia, we lead the National Coalition on Youth, Peace and Security (CCYPS) and coordinate the international cooperation working group to advance this agenda, promoting public policies that recognise young people as essential peacebuilders.
As part of this effort, and in partnership with the organization BogotArt, an advocacy document was developed through a national-level research effort that gathers the perceptions and experiences of young people regarding peace and security, incorporating territorial specificities as well as an ethnic and differential approach. The aim of this research is to generate relevant and context-sensitive inputs that can be used by governmental entities, international organizations, the private sector, civil society, and academia, in order to promote meaningful and inclusive youth participation in formal decision-making spaces.
This work is especially meaningful in light of a historic moment for the country. Colombia is poised to become the first country in Latin America to adopt a National Action Plan for the Youth, Peace and Security Agenda. This milestone presents a unique opportunity to redefine the role of youth in peacebuilding. At LATIR, we are committed to ensuring that this commitment results in concrete actions, anchored in local realities, guided by sustainability, and driven by meaningful youth participation.
LATIR's vision for the coming years
LATIR’s vision is clear: by 2027, we aim to be a leading organisation in the implementation of comprehensive peace education programmes in Colombia. This projection goes beyond the technical execution of educational projects. It also involves leading political advocacy processes and promoting meaningful participation.
We seek to contribute to a systemic transformation where the rights, voices, and proposals of children and adolescents are heard and considered in decision-making spaces. We aspire to build a society where young people not only access education but are also recognised as active political agents, capable of imagining and creating solutions from their own territories. At LATIR, we believe that true peace can only be built when those who have been most excluded are placed at the centre of the conversation.
Our programmes have already positively impacted the lives of more than 7,000 children, adolescents, and youth, as well as families, caregivers, teachers, and school leaders. We have done so from a deep conviction that education is not only a right but a powerful tool for collective transformation. In a country that has endured so much, educating with love, with justice, and with community is a radical act of resistance—and of rebuilding peace.
