Shared Responsibility

What we have done

The site

Shared Responsibility’s site has been up and running since 2005. Here you can find.

• In-depth featured content
• Latest news
• Facts and figures
• Database of international drug-related organizations
• Interactive game
• Library of relevant literature, videos and photographs
• Monthly newsletter
• Media center
• Visual gallery of what Colombia has to offer
• Accurate information about Colombia’s past and present
• International cocaine seizure meter

Power launch

• On November 2006, Shared Responsibility packed its bags, crossed the Atlantic and landed in London, where our initiative’s international launch took place. With us came five courageous women, all victims of drug trafficking and the violence it generates. For more information on what these women did in the UK, please go to Up close and personal.
• Top drug officials came from twelve different nations – Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Poland, Russia, Spain and the United Kingdom – joined Shared Responsibility in London to share their recent experiences in combating drug trafficking and consumption.
• Following these interventions, Colombia’s Vice-President Francisco Santos formally presented the Shared Responsibility initiative, highlighting the work already completed in coca eradication and alternative development strategies but also elucidating the urgent need for all nations to work together to keep this work moving forward.
• In closing, the Vice-President, accompanied by Kim Howells, Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Antonio Maria Costa, worldwide Director of UNODC and Carel Edwards, Drugs Coordinator for the European Commission, hosted a press conference jam-packed with members from major international news sources.

Up close and personal

• The five women who joined Shared Responsibility in the UK were all victims of drug-fuelled violence at some point in their lives. They traveled to the UK to meet with drug prevention workers, community leaders, ex-drug addicts, members of the press and of the local communities of Birmingham, Basingstoke and London.
• In Birmingham, an ex-drug addict said: “I did not know that I was causing so much harm to others,” after she heard the women’s testimonies. “This helps me and stimulates me even more to do what I am doing in giving up my addiction. If I don’t consume cocaine, I’m saving pain to Colombian people”, added a 45 year old man, a former user of cocaine, crack and heroin who quit drugs 18 months ago and is still struggling against his addiction.
• In Basingstoke the impact was even greater. Here, the meeting between the five women and the local community was organized by a drug prevention organization called Doors UK and Frutos del Espíritu, a British non-profit company that buys Colombian juice pulp from vulnerable communities to sell in England. As a result of this meeting, the Basingstoke organized further events to promote Shared Responsibility’s cause.
• Here are the five women’s amazing testimonies.
  • Olinda Giron
  • Emperatriz de Guevara
  • Natalia Rodriguez
  • Aura Amelia Abril
  • Paola Carrillo
• To read the myriad news stories that were published regarding these events please go to our Media Center and click on London Launch.

Ecocide unearthed

• From May 30th to June 1st, 2007, representatives from 12 nations, including diplomats, anti-narcotics coordinators and international journalists, witnessed the vast environmental damage Colombia is suffering due to the cultivation of illicit crops, during Shared Responsibility’s International Encounter on the Environment and Illegal Drugs in Santa Marta, Colombia.
• In addition, they learned about the programs that the government, with the help of various international organizations, has advanced to counter this damage.
• To read the full agenda, please click here.
• The wide media coverage generated by this event is available in our Media Center, under International Encounter on the Environment

Destination: Colombia

• Some of Shared Responsibility’s staunchest allies are the journalists and photographers that have come to Colombia to see for themselves how this country is changing and how it is fighting to overcome the social and environmental costs of drug trafficking.
• Shared Responsibility has organized objective, high-impact agendas for publications from UK’s The Sun to Germany’s Frankfurter Allemaigne Zetung to Italy’s RAI to the USA’s Bloomberg, taking reporters and their cameras to the front-lines in the fight against drugs.
• An inevitable part of any agenda organized in Colombia involves showing visitors the natural and urban jewels this country has to offer. Whether it’s seeing Medellin’s transformation from a ski lift-like transportation system erected above the city’s poorest communities or taking a dip in clear rivers or blue beaches minutes away from Santa Marta’s snow-capped mountains, visitors in Colombia, no matter the purpose of their visit, cannot help enjoying themselves.