The first hands that touched Clemencia when she came into the world were those of her great-aunt, a traditional midwife who went to the small village of La Balsa, in Cauca, Colombia, to welcome her into the world. 

La Balsa is located 115 kilometers from Popayán, the capital of Cauca. This township was founded by Franciscan priests in 1634 and then populated by Africans who were sold into slavery for mining exploitation. Clemencia is the daughter of this afro-Colombian heritage.  

Despite the suffering of her ancestors, Clemencia’s childhood was spent in a free and safe environment within a large, loving family. She was guided by the example of a father who was a leader committed to improving the living conditions of his community and a mother who worked the land all her life to provide for her family. Clemencia remembers having a happy and trouble-free childhood near Colombia’s Cauca River. The river provided fish and was a source of fun—while children were swimming, fishing, and splashing, women would be singing and washing clothes—and there was a genuine community union where food was cooked and shared collectively.  

“We had what we called the traditional farm, which was like the pantry for us. All the subsistence products for the family and food security were sown and collected. From the outside, only rice, salt, and oil were bought because, in addition to crops, there were chickens and pigs. From the Cauca River, fish were extracted for the community, something that was possible before the pollution brought by mining with machines.” – Clemencia Carabalí 

An innate leader held back by the big city 

However, accessing formal education was not easy for Clemencia. When she started high school, she had to study in a rural school that was an hour, and a half walk from her home. This made her step out of her bubble of protection and face the anonymity and disinterest of her classmates. However, this anonymity did not last long because Clemencia quickly showed leadership traits. She was in charge of the school restaurant and the discipline of the classroom. Then, in 11th grade, the commitments became more serious as she led community public health projects with women who were heads of households when dengue hit the sector. 

At that time, Clemencia was already aware that her opportunities would not be the same as those of the people who lived in big cities. Even so, she dreamed of studying business administration at a university. Not seeing opportunities at a public university due to the reduced and competitive spots, she enrolled in a private university, where she received a partial scholarship.  

Clemencia then decided to leave her small town and move to Cali, the capital of Valle del Cauca and the third largest city in Colombia, to study at the University of Santiago de Cali. There she worked as a shoemaker, selling peach palm and cassava cakes, while she studied.  

“At university, the perception of discrimination and racism became clearer because in the environment in which I studied, there were few Afro-descendants since they could not study there due to the high cost. I myself had to manage a half scholarship (…) At the university, my leadership was asleep because I was working to pay the tuition and I didn’t have enough time, but that “little worm of leadership” was still there; with that strength, I had to fight for my people and their rights.“ – Clemencia Carabalí

Her time in the capital of Valle del Cauca was difficult; in her mind, there was still the river and the smell of the food they made in La Balsa. So, whenever she had time, Clemencia would go back to her hometown and get involved in organizational processes in her territory. She would also go to visit her partner, a farmer, and artisanal miner she met when she was in high school.  

Coming back to her roots: The creation of ASOM and the outbreak of the armed conflict 

During her seventh semester at the university, Clemencia got pregnant with her first child. Clemencia postponed her career when the baby was born and dedicated herself to her son and to growing and supporting the farms in La Balsa. She utilized a tactic that’s very typical of her community called “mano cambia da,” which consists of mutual collaboration between farmers to help harvest and clean the farm of her neighbors and thus reduce maintenance costs. In that “mano cambiada”, and in conversations washing and singing in the river, the idea of creating a women’s association arose to increase the sales of their products outside the township. 

In 1997, the Association of Afro-Colombian Women of Northern Cauca (ASOM) was born, an organization of which Clemencia was president, co-founder, and legal representative. The organization was a success, and today, it has 250 members. There, women found the possibility of creating a collective working group, starting from their own traditions and knowledge to manage change in their territory. 

Yet, in 2001, the women of Cauca faced a major challenge: the presence of right-wing paramilitaries who instilled terror, carried out selective assassinations, and forced displacements of all those whom they believed to be sympathizers of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC).  

The FARC had been in the region since 1978, yet they had never confronted the Balsa community. Clemencia and the other villagers only knew that they existed in the area, but with the arrival of the paramilitaries, the context changed drastically. “The order was to raze all the townships. Each one picked up what little they could and fled. From that moment on, chaos set in,” says Clemencia.

“We women continued forward, we did not stop, because we united with strength and courage around the motto: ‘Woman and friend, your struggle is my struggle,’ and thus we confronted both the guerrillas and later the paramilitaries, who subjected our people to all kinds of abuses and violations, mainly women. The violence did not prevent this process from being strengthened little by little, and today we continue in the front row defending the territory, our rights, and the hope of peace in northern Cauca”–Clemencia Carabalí  

Witnessing this devastating turn of events, Clemencia created a solidarity economy bank, an entity managed democratically and autonomously to finance the productive activities of the territory. The bank was opened with the support of the Solidarity Network and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which granted the new bank 50 million COP (12,026 USD), thus supporting the women’s programs in the area. In just a short amount of time, the fund grew to 260 million pesos (62,540 USD). After this achievement, Clemencia’s community began to listen to her more and trust her judgment, so much so that organizations traditionally run by men began to ally with her.  

In 2004, together, ASOM and the Black Communities Process (PCN) stopped the diversion of one of the most important rivers in the community, the Ovejas River, after a decision was made by the government to increase the capacity of the Salvajina reservoir, which guarantees the water supply for Cali. The diversion would mean leaving entire rural communities without water. However, Clemencia, working hand in hand with Afro-descendant leaders of her region, created a prior consultation –a democratic process for local communities to participate in decision-making about projects that may affect their territory– and thus, the community was able to reject the diversion. This was the first time Clemencia supported a prior consultation, and it was there that she met women who today are strong advocates for Afro-descendant Peoples, among them, Francia Márquez Mina, the current Vice President of Colombia, who demonstrated to Afro-descendant Peoples that with purpose and passion, great changes could be achieved. 

While the Afro-descendant People saw Clemencia as a reference in their struggles for rights, the guerrillas and paramilitaries viewed her with distrust. Clemencia began to be the target of threats and violent actions. She was injured in mobilizations against resource extraction and was the victim of an attack in 2019 that forced her to leave the country. Although years later, she continued with her organizational work and received the 2019 National Award for the Defense of Human Rights as Defender of the Year from the Swedish Church and Diakonia. This was the first of multiple awards, including the 2022 Woodrow Wilson International Human Rights Award, that she would win for her leadership efforts. These recognitions have been an incentive for her to continue defending the rights of Afro-Colombian communities and the search for peace. 

Clemencia continues to work in her territory alongside women and communities, convinced that the most important thing is to be on the side of her people, fighting for peace and well-being in her region and in the country. 

“My struggle is from the communities, in my territory, in my home, with my children who are my encouragement, my family and with my people who make me see what we do together as something real, true and efficient.” – Clemencia Carabalí.