Gloria Amparo Arboleda, a 61-year-old black woman who was born in the rural area of Buenaventura, Colombia’s main port, speaks without pause. She feels like the owner of a freedom that she shaped at the end of the gossip, an ancient practice from the Pacific coast to vent one’s anxieties with other women. The safe space to reveal the annoyance it caused them that the husband spent the money from the sale of the chickens on liquor, instead of food; the difficulties of raising children, or the fear that an armed group would recruit their children. “Nowadays women can feel strong thanks to the meetings, to the support,” she says with a firm voice on the other end of the phone, before starting her day when the clock almost strikes six in the morning.
Gloria and other women from territories besieged by the conflict have healed wounds from war—and from a sexist culture that has plunged many into submission and oblivion—by sharing their sorrows, listening to each other, shining a light with advice in moments of darkness, or simply embracing the certainty that they are not alone. “Because, in addition, we have had to cry quietly,” reflects the founder of the Association of Peasant, Black and Indigenous Women of Buenaventura. The group has been a shelter with which its members can consider themselves part of the 56% of Colombians who have close trusted networks.
Having support networks is a privilege: 44% of citizens do not have them, according to the political culture survey of the National Administrative Department of Statistics DANE in 2023, which consulted 64,770 people aged 18 or over. In practice, it means not having someone to visit with any frequency or who is present in difficult circumstances, not having someone willing to help in the job search, not being able to leave a child in the care of another, not having someone to calling in an episode of anxiety, illness or any other emergency, not knowing who to borrow money from or a night of shelter.
Maintaining these networks reduces stress, facilitates decision making and increases personal motivation. The lack of emotional, logistical or material support is a warning sign, explains Sandra Milena Toro, head of the mental health department at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of La Sabana. “When there is no family, partner, friend or community support, it is easier to get stressed, have anxiety, and present symptoms of sadness, disappointment or hopelessness. If it is combined with other risk factors, it can lead someone to suffer from an anxiety or depressive disorder,” explains the psychiatry specialist.
The Buenaventura women’s group is a mirror of how collective support brings bursts of peace of mind. In 2003 they created a chain in which a number is assigned to each one. With contributions of small amounts of money and basic products such as rice, fruits or vegetables, they organized markets that were delivered according to the number on the rotating list. “We started bringing the market to the house and that gives freshness, tranquility. If I didn’t need it, I would give the turn to someone who did need it. That generated an incredible thing,” says Gloria Amparo.
But not everyone finds that respite. The lack of support networks has increased 10 points in just four years, since in the 2019 survey, the number of those who did not feel they had them was 34.8%. However, there is a slight improvement compared to the interim survey in 2021, when after months of pandemic, physical isolation and economic crisis, 48.2% of Colombians did not feel they had these networks. In the two years since then the figure has partially recovered.
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Although the difference is small, this deficiency today affects men (45.3%) more than women (42.9%). Toro considers that the pandemic strengthened the imaginary of relationships created through screens that, with the return to reality, left a void. Contacts or the number of followers on social networks, for example, do not replace a close conversation with a friend or a hug from a family member. “Perhaps that is what has increased the feeling that we do not have support, seeing that there are many people but that we are really alone. There are people who give you a likewho makes a comment to you, but when it comes down to it he is not there,” he adds.
The DANE political culture survey also shows that the group of people that Colombians trust most is family with 94%, followed by friends with 40.5%. However, these ties do not strengthen spontaneously. “Family, personal, and friendship relationships are not built by a simple blood bond or because we told each other that we are a couple or that we are friends, but rather requires a judicious construction on both sides, which is created by sharing moments, by listening to the another, with the experiences, not only those that can be had in a photo, but those that one builds by living the joys and those that are not so happy, the difficulties,” says Toro.
“Support networks are consolidations that allow life to have brotherhood. “If one lives to serve, it makes sense to be here because if not we are living dead,” says Gloria Amparo Arboleda, the leader of Buenaventura who is clear that the gossip It is a way of caring for the soul.
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