Marked by the pain of many years of violence, displacement, deaths, and the absence of loved ones, the women from the Colombian region of Montes de María took destiny into their own hands. This is a group portrait of these rural women who are building a future despite the scars and the pain of war.

In Montes de María, one of the regions of Colombia most affected by the war over the last two decades, Sara, Neyda, Tomasa and many other women were bereaved of their husbands and children. Alone, holding out in a land they knew to be theirs, or that they returned to, despite the scars…