Objective
“Abriendo Caminos” – (Opening Roads) is the local name given to this Chicago based program known internationally as “Cure Violence”. Five years ago Cure Violence was introduced to Colombia through the efforts of the Alvaralice Foundation and the alliances that were created in order to secure and make this project possible. On December 2016, Alvaralice was able to secure the grant to implement “Cure Violence” in Cali from the Inter-American Bank’s (IADB), Japan Special Fund (JSF) and the Office of the Mayor of Cali.
“Cure Violence” is a methodology for violence prevention created in 1995, and implemented in 2000, by the epidemiologist Gary Slutkin. “Cure Violence” approaches violence in an entirely new way: as a contagious disease using the same health strategies employed to fight epidemics. This approach is from a public health perspective, arguing that violence is a learned behavior that can be prevented through a three-dimensional strategy: interruption of the transmission, identification and transformation of the mentality of the highest in-risk transmitters, and the change of group norms.
