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\nThe Road to the Ring | Swapping gangs for boxing in Medellin\n

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\nAs a pink dusk settles on this poor hillside slum in the city of Medellin, 19-year-old Esteban Arrieta skips and shadow punches with a small group of budding boxers in a bare classroom. Just a few years ago, Arrieta would have been...\nAs a pink dusk settles on this poor hillside slum in the city of Medellin, 19-year-old Esteban Arrieta skips and shadow punches with a small group of budding boxers in a bare classroom. Just a few years ago, Arrieta would have been skipping school, not a rope, and loitering on street corners smoking marijuana. Arrieta did not join one, but teenage dropouts like him make easy prey for the gangs that have carved up Medellin's slums - home to around half of its 2.5 million residents - as they recruit messengers, arms couriers and street drug dealers. \"It's very difficult to get out of a society where the first thing you smell in this neighbourhood is the whiff of marijuana,\" Arrieta told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. \"It's difficult to be someone good when there are more bad opportunities than good ones,\" he said during a break at the gym in the slum neighbourhood of La Honda in east Medellin. When the boxing programme - Walking to the Ring - was launched here in 2016 by the non-profit International Group for Peace (GIP), Arrieta seized the opportunity. The project aims to keep teenagers off the streets and away from crime by offering boxing as an alternative to gang life, in turn trying to make Colombia's second city of Medellin safer. For Arrieta, who lives in a sparse wooden shack with no running water in La Honda, a neighbourhood founded by families who have been displaced by Colombia's war, boxing is a respite from his daily life and the surrounding gang violence. \"Boxing was a way out of many problems I had. It helped me give up drugs. Because thanks to boxing, it showed me a different way of life. It's become my life,\" Arrieta said. \"When I box I feel an escape ... when I'm punching I get rid of all my anger, I de-stress.\" Read the full story on The Thomson Reuters Foundation acts to promote the highest standards in journalism and spread the practice of legal pro bono worldwide. The organisation runs free services that provide individuals and organisations with vital access to information and services around the globe: free legal assistance to NGOs and social enterprises, editorial coverage of the world’s under-reported news, media development and training, and Trust Conference (). Read our news Learn more Follow us on Twitter or Facebook We welcome all comments that contribute constructively to the debate. We have the right to remove any posting if, in our opinion, your post does not comply with the content standards set out in the Acceptable Use Policy on\n
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Resource Details

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Educator Rating
Not yet Rated
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Grade
9th - 11th
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Subjects
All Subjects
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Media Type
Instructional Videos
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Source:
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Date
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2019
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Audiences
For Teacher Use
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