Persons in exile deserve to have their voices amplified so the impact of the armed conflict on them and their families is understood. Through songs, poems, phrases, and storytelling, these individuals share with us a part of their history from exile, a history that conveys the uprooting endured in establishing another life in another place due to circumstances not of their own choosing. Below you will find a compilation of contributions provided voluntarily and anonymously by exiles in Canada.

The goal of this this exercise is to contribute to the recognition of exile as one of the forms of victimization generated by the armed conflict in Colombia. Truths about conflicts are constructed with fragments of stories, and each person in exile represents a piece in this immense puzzle, in this history of pain and dispossession during Colombia’s social, armed, and political conflict. This initiative is part of the Colombian Truth Commission in Canada.

Trade unionists, human rights defenders, and social leaders, men and women, share their reflections about the exile experience. They reveal what was broken in their relationship with the community they left behind in Colombia and what they experienced in rebuilding a life in Canada where language, and the need to sustain their families, represented barriers to continued leadership. These videos are part of a series of contributions provided voluntarily and anonymously by Colombian exiles in Canada in response to the question "How would you represent your exile process?"