ColombiaOne has been selected as a winner of Narra tu Territorio, a national initiative recognizing community-driven storytelling, for a microreportage highlighting the rural families preserving Boyaca’s ancestral potato-growing traditions.
ColombiaOne, a digital news outlet telling Colombia’s stories in English and Spanish, has won the C1 Microreporting for Social Media category in the second round of Narra tu Territorio, a national competition led by Colombia’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC) and implemented by regional broadcaster Canal Trece.
The winning project, titled “Tesoros Nativos: la papa que Boyaca no dejo morir” (“Native Treasures: The Potato Boyaca Refused to Let Die”), takes audiences to Ventaquemada, a rural municipality in Boyaca, where more than 50 farming families are keeping alive native potato varieties rooted in the agricultural traditions of the Indigenous Muisca people.
The recognition highlights ColombiaOne’s commitment to bringing overlooked regional stories to wider audiences and connecting Colombia’s cultural heritage with readers beyond its borders.
Bringing Boyaca’s agricultural heritage to a wider audience
Set in the Andean countryside at approximately 2,800 meters above sea level, the microreportage explores the work of farming families involved in the Tesoros Nativos project. Many of these families are led by rural women, according to the proposal.
The story is told through the perspective of Judy Emicle Briceño Castro, director of the project, who represents the families and helps explain how their collective efforts have sustained the initiative over time.
By focusing on native potatoes, traditional agricultural knowledge, and community organization, the report goes beyond farming to examine how food, identity, and cultural memory remain intertwined in Colombia’s rural communities.
Ventaquemada is often associated with the highway connecting travelers to other destinations in the Andean region. The winning project instead places the municipality and its farming communities at the center of a story about heritage, resilience and the preservation of local knowledge.
A national competition celebrating local voices
Narra tu Territorio is part of Medios en Red 2.0, a national program designed to strengthen alternative, community-based and digital media while encouraging audiovisual productions that reflect the realities of Colombia’s diverse territories.
The competition seeks stories rooted in local communities, including those that rarely receive sustained attention from larger media organizations. Its thematic focus includes culture, recreation and sport as forces that shape identity, strengthen social bonds and contribute to community life.
The second round evaluated 222 proposals, of which 75 were selected as winners across three categories: microreportages for social media, serialized chronicles, and short films.
In the C1 category, 30 projects were selected from 34 proposals evaluated, placing ColombiaOne among the winning initiatives in a highly competitive selection process.
The program also provides financial incentives and institutional distribution opportunities to selected productions, helping local stories reach audiences beyond their immediate communities.
Inspiration to keep moving
The award is also significant because the competition explicitly allowed nonformalized digital media to participate, opening the door to independent outlets working to expand their reach and professionalize their production.
For ColombiaOne, the selection represents institutional recognition of its editorial work and its ability to bring locally grounded Colombian stories to international audiences. By publishing in English and Spanish, the outlet can help introduce the people, traditions, and communities behind Colombia’s cultural diversity to readers who might otherwise never encounter them.
The winning project reinforces a central principle of community journalism: Stories with national and international relevance often begin in places far removed from the country’s main media centers.
As ColombiaOne continues to cover the country’s politics, economy, culture and everyday life, “Tesoros Nativos” demonstrates the value of looking beyond the headlines to tell stories that preserve memory, celebrate local knowledge and connect Colombia with the world.