It is the weekend, but the classroom is full of children bearing green and red batons and adorned with scarves and ribbons. In the town of Toribío, in south-west Colombia, the Indigenous Guard is teaching their children how to avoid being recruited into militias, and defend their lands in Cauca province, notorious as one of the country’s most turbulent.
The colours they carry represent “green for mother nature and red for the blood shed by our elders”, says Angie Barrera, 11.
