The city of Medellin has gone through a lot of historical events. The city was known as the capital and the cradle of drug trafficking in a dark era during the 1980s and 1990s,  but the people found a way to transform their city and were able to construct one of the most innovative models for a social transformation.

September 27th 1987 a massive landslide destroyed much of the impoverished neighborhood of Villatina, killing 500 people and injuring 2000.  Joaquin Calle lost both his parents that afternoon and as many other young people at the time, turned to the drugs and violence that were so common.

Over the years Joaquin turned his life around and founded the Corporacion Campo Santo, honoring the victims and survivors of the years turmoil.  All together they built a sacred field memorial to the victims, and in the process creating environmental projects.

He decided to take in what used to be gang trenches and turn them into a recycling center, recycling solid material, local composting processing and cultivating a community garden.  And as an educational tool, he created environmental classrooms to educate the surrounding communities and foster local, national, and now international encounters to interact and learn much more from one another.