Unprecedented rain that has hammered Colombia over the past year has affected three million people and left hundreds of thousands homeless. In March, I spent three weeks traveling across the Caribbean region visiting families displaced by the floods.

Luz Mari and I sat in the back of the truck for the first two of the five hour drive from Quito to San Lorenzo, a small city near Ecuador’s coast that is home to an ever increasing number of Colombians seeking refuge. We were returning from the 4th World Social Forum on Migrations that was held in Quito from October 8-12.

One in ten Colombians has been uprooted by ongoing violence; families have been broken and loved ones assassinated. After being displaced, young boys and girls are forced to drop out of school in order to support their families and are at constant risk of being forcibly recruited by armed groups and narcotics gangs. A nationwide campaign to highlight these powerful human stories culminated with a grassroots effort to generate letters to Congressional representatives.

This past January a policy directive of Colombian President Uribe outlined the National Plan for the Consolidation of Territory (Plan Nacional de Consolidación Territorial). The short, assertive and results-oriented memo instructed Colombian national, local, military and civilian authorities to work together to attain a stronger grip over strategic swaths of land, recovered from guerrilla control, within a period of 18 months. Two objectives of the strategy include an increase in confidence by Colombian citizens towards their own government and the reassurance to investors about their economic interests.