Gareth Steven Sella Forero, a young man who sustained an injury to his left eye during the social breakout marches, will become deputy youth minister at the Ministry of Equality. His CV will be published shortly before the appointment on the page of candidates for the presidency of the Republic.
On February 24, 2021, while participating in the demonstrations in Bogotá, Sella Forero was hit in his left eye by an unknown object, which would have caused a loss of up to 90% of his vision. The young man claims he was a victim of “police brutality” at the protest, although this has not yet been confirmed by authorities.
During the protests, the young man was part of the so-called Blue Shields, a self-proclaimed peaceful group of the first line, which was also the perpetrator of the worst violent excesses of the demonstration days.
The young man will certainly be one of the five deputy ministers of Francia Márquez’s Ministry of Equality, although he only has a bachelor’s degree and four years of professional experience as an audiovisual producer.
His first job was at La Resistencia Cine, a social media project focused on portraying grievances and social injustices. He later managed to obtain multi-million dollar contracts with the mayor’s office of Bogotá as an audiovisual producer. These tasks were carried out in the Government Secretariat and the District Institute of the Arts.
Later, he was a contractor for the Petro government under the Social Welfare Department of its former director Cielo Rusinque. He worked as an audiovisual producer until September 4th, the date on which he left the company, before terminating his contract, which was valid until December 29th of this year.
In total he has four years and three months of professional experience and has only reported one year and eleven months as a civil servant.
The central policy he will lead is Jóvenes en Paz, which will pay one million pesos a month to 100,000 young people “for not killing,” as President Gustavo Petro once said. There will be a budget of 1.2 billion pesos per year for this.
A few days ago, Diana Gómez Correal also took office as Vice Minister for Women at the Ministry of Equality. The woman has a master’s degree in history from National University and a doctorate in anthropology from the University of North Carolina. In addition, she has experience in the subject, as in addition to her work as a teacher, she also worked in the women’s secretariat of Bogotá and in the women’s shelter.
