Introduction​

In 2016 a Colombian Community Organizer whose daughter attends BYU Idaho, heard about our activities working with Nivacle Indians in Abundancia, Paraguay. He described the situation in the La Guajira, Colombia where according to Shipia Wayuu, a Wayuu organization, 4,700 Wayuu children had died in the past five years due to malnutrition and lack of water.  We agreed to look into to the situation. In April of 2016 we traveled down to Colombia. Although we didn't visit the remote Guajira, we visited several Colombian Universities looking for a school to collaborate with us on this project. We talked with faculty from the University of the Guajira in Maicao and the University Popular del Cesar in Valledupar. We visited with some farm representatives in Barranquilla that were willing to provide some acreage to grow test crops. We finished in Periera where we met with the University Libre of Pereira and the University Technological of Pereira. We had hoped to find an indigenous group near Pereira to act as a control group when we collected nutritional data of the Wayuu. The University of the Guajira was very interested in our project and became our principal agent. The University Libre of Pereira was our agent in Pereira. Based on the visit we proposed the following timeline for the project.

​