Samanta Arango Orozco

indigenous and peasant community activist

“My name is Samanta. I grew up in the countryside, in the department of Quindío, Colombia, between rivers and mountains full of life and diversity. My environment filled me with an interest in understanding and protecting the web of relationships—human and non-human—that sustain me, sustain us.

I trained in anthropology, with an emphasis on political ecology, gender, and environment, and since then I have dedicated myself to building processes of communication and pedagogy for the defense of territories and communities that are threatened by extractivist projects. I work in articulation with ethnic and peasant communities in Tolima, Risaralda, and Quindío that resist mining-energy and agro-industrial projects, based on proposals for the protection and care of ecosystems, native seeds, and food sovereignty. I have been editor of the magazine Semillas, coordinator of the Cacica Dulima School of political and women’s advocacy, and participant in the Manuel Quintín Lame Agroecological and Territorial School. I currently work with the organizations Amar Es Más, Grupo Semillas, and the Confluencia de Mujeres para la Acción Pública.”