Regenerative Storytelling: Help Sustain Barichara’s Living Narrative

This is a guest article written by April Bartlett. She is currently helping us in Barichara to promote the wonderful projects like this one that are continually emerging in the local community.

In the highlands of Colombia, nestled in the Andes Mountains above the Río Suárez, the town of Barichara pulses with an ancient rhythm—one rooted in the quiet resilience of its people. Here, a regenerative transformation is taking shape, not only on the land, but in the hearts and lives of those who have chosen to live in service to life itself. At the center of this movement is a collaborative storytelling initiative called Historias Regenerativas—Stories That Regenerate.

In February of this year (2025), I attended the Barichara Design Immersion where I got to see first hand the land and people being transformed. I didn’t come to Barichara expecting to stay. But something happened during that February immersion that I still don’t fully have words for. I arrived carrying questions about how to be of service in a world unraveling at the seams. What I found were people quietly stitching something back together—thread by thread, story by story.

I remember standing in the Orígen del Agua, tracing the lines of erosion with my eyes, listening to Jessica Lisiewski speak about the land's recovery, and feeling a pull—of inspiration and responsibility. This was so much more than a landscape being healed. It was a culture, a community, a worldview being reclaimed - alchemy to say the least.

I’ve spent years walking with questions about how stories can serve life. In Barichara, I saw the answer: when stories are told with care, they become medicine. Not just for those who hear them—but for those who live them.

That’s when I knew I wanted to go deeper. So I stayed. I joined the team to document regeneration – to participate in it. To learn and live it. To help hold space for voices rising like seedlings through the cracks of a broken system, full of beauty and quiet strength.

Historias Regenerativas was born from this need to support the local regenerative initiatives within the community and bring light to a model that is scalable worldwide. On our team we have a brilliant social communicator and writer, Cecy Restrepo, who dedicates her time to Syntropic Agriculture and the Fundación Barichara Regenerativa, a territorial foundation weaving together environmental, educational, economic, and cultural regeneration.

The stories that emerged from this territory were too powerful to remain unseen. To answer this call, Restrepo joined with Embodic Films, a creative team devoted to crafting audiovisual content that reflects the soul of Barichara. This partnership gave rise to Historias Regenerativas, a storytelling initiative focused on documenting the lived experiences of local regenerative leaders—farmers, teachers, families, and children—through film, photography, and narrative.

From the very beginning, the team was clear: the camera is not the protagonist. It is simply a tool—one that listens, witnesses, and amplifies. Historias Regenerativas is not a foundation, nor a formal collective. It is not a structure of shared governance or decision-making. Rather, it is a bridge. A lens through which the broader world can see, feel, and connect to the work already unfolding in Barichara through the hands of its people and visionaries like Joe Brewer  and Penny Heiple.

The stories shared through Historias Regenerativas reflect the essence of regenerative culture. They speak of the Orígen del Agua, a once-eroded landscape reclaimed through community crowdfunding, now used to teach ecological restoration to people of all ages. They shine light on Bioparque Móncora, where families reforest and renew their relationship with food, soil, and the Earth. And, they echo through Sueños del Bosque, a regenerative school that teaches children the art of regeneration. Each video created will eventually be added to a content library with a geospatial map allowing the community at large to learn and grow with us.

Each audiovisual piece—whether a short film, a social media reel, or an educational video—offers a window into a community rising from the ground up. These stories are being used locally to build connection and momentum, while also traveling globally to invite support, funding, and recognition for the work being done while also standing as a living example for others.

Initial donor support has enabled the team to work for three months, producing content and engaging in community outreach. Now, the team is seeking to raise $25,000 to sustain its work through the rest of the year—supporting not only content creation but the regenerative efforts themselves. This cultural commons. A living archive of knowledge, love, and restoration- where every dollar goes into action.

To support this project is to believe in the power of story to transform how we see the Earth—and our place in it. In Barichara, storytelling is more than documentation. It is regeneration.

You can support the effort by donating to the Barichara Regenerative Education Fund.

If you are moved to make a donation, drop a note with your donation that you would like the funding to go to Historias Regenerativa to ensure it gets allocated to supporting this initiative.