Thanks to the programme, he was able to gain a diploma to work with a company providing internet and telephone services, a job which involved some of the physical, acrobatic skills he had used on the streets as a child.

“That was the opportunity I had been waiting for years", he says. “After everything that I had experienced, including living on the streets, having to beg, it seemed like a dream”.

As well as providing Mr. Vergara with a vocational education, ‘Training for the Future is providing him with psychosocial and other forms of support. To date, the program has benefited more than 1770 victims of the conflict, in 27 cities throughout the country.

After graduating, in October 2021, Mr. Vergara received a job offer as a technician, where he receives a salary commensurate with his qualifications, with options to grow professionally.

Mr. Vergara says that he wants to continue studying, and hopes to go to University. "I have learned that, in life, material things can be taken away from you, but not knowledge”, he says, adding that, in his view, education is the key to reducing the violence that is still present in Colombia.

"If we want to move forward and have a future as a country, the first thing we have to think about is education. A country without culture or education is a country with no vision, a country that will live by struggle and fighting."