Who is Ricardo Esquivia?

Ricardo Esquivia, a visionary Mennonite peace leader is described by some as the “Gandhi of Colombia.” Ricardo has dedicated his life to building peace in Colombia, a country with the worst human rights record and longest-running civil war in the Western hemisphere, a war which has left over 3 million people displaced – second only to Sudan.


The son of an Afro-Colombian father and an indigenous mother, Ricardo was raised on the Caribbean coast. When his father developed leprosy and was institutionalized, Ricardo lived on the streets until the Mennonite Church took him in and educated him in their school. The Mennonite Church became Ricardo’s extended family and nurtured his commitment to peace, justice, and non-violence.


From that small school, he went on to study law and then returned to the Caribbean coast to organize poor farmers in Montes de Maria. Accused of being an ideologue for the guerrillas for his community organizing, Ricardo, his wife and four children fled, first to Cartagena and then to Bogota. There, he founded Justapaz, the Christian Center for Peace, Justice and Non-Violent Action. He served as its Executive Director for 13 years, developing work with displaced communities and projects for sustainable economic development and peace education. His work with conscientious objectors brought him into conflict with the Colombian military and forced him to flee into exile in the United States for a time.


In a country where Protestants are a small minority, Ricardo helped establish the Commission for Restoration, Life, and Peace of the Colombian Council of Evangelical Churches (CEDECOL), of which he still serves as National Coordinator. In this capacity, he has facilitated the development of five regional commissions of pastors and lay leaders to help Protestant churches provide emergency assistance to the displaced, develop small-scale economic projects, and work with local leaders to build a grassroots movement for peace. He also has participated in national and regional dialogues with legal and illegal armed groups in Colombia.


As a founding member with three Catholic Bishops of the Foundation of Development and Peace of Montes de Maria, Ricardo works regionally and ecumenically to increase civil society participation in a “laboratory of peace” funded through the European Union. In 2004 he returned home to the Atlantic Coast and founded and still directs SembrandoPaz (Planting Peace).



In 2008 he was awarded Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Pfeffer Peace Prize