We Chose Paint

When we integrated Casa Pintada into our activities in 2021, our goal was to help people affected by violence and displacement build community connections and rebuild stability. The medium we chose to work with was paint; Casa Pintada literally means painted house in English.

Casa Pintada uses paint rollers to work almost like textured stamps – you load them with paint and roll them across walls to create repeating patterns and symbols. Artist Vicky Fadul developed this technique inspired by the Zenú, an indigenous group from Colombia known for their intricate woven patterns. Instead of requiring artistic training, anyone could create beautiful, meaningful designs on their homes.

In the past four years, we brought Casa Pintada to 44 neighbourhoods across 22 Colombian cities. These weren’t just any neighbourhoods. They were places facing poverty and social exclusion, often carrying scars from decades of armed conflict. Then came waves of Venezuelan families fleeing their own crisis, adding new tensions to communities already stretched thin.

Creating a sense of community and building trust among neighbors is never simple, and the challenge is even greater when people are coping with trauma and loss. We saw Casa Pintada as an opportunity to break down the barriers, and that by repairing homes, we could help people heal as well.

Bringing Color Back

The heart of Casa Pintada was a week-long workshop led by Vicky Fadul. About 25 community members, usually women and youth, would learn painting techniques and how to create symbols that reflected their shared experiences, then they would paint homes, community buildings, or other shared spaces. Ultimately, it is about community and belonging. Everything was driven by local needs and opportunities – from what neighborhoods we worked in to how we worked with local officials to bring in funds and support.

I watched these workshops unfold across dozens of neighborhoods, and the pattern was always the same.

  • Day one: people arrived polite but cautious, Colombians clustering with Colombians, Venezuelans with Venezuelans.
  • Day three: someone would laugh at a shared mistake with the paint.
  • Day five: they were planning which houses to tackle next, mixing not just paint, but also stories about what they’d left behind and what they hoped to build in the future.

In the San Fernando neighborhood, a Colombian man who served on both the local welcoming committee and as president of the community action board told me:

“Casa Pintada not only beautified the neighborhood but also united our community. We had young people who, in one way or another, have different behaviors in the community. The workshop involved them as students, gave them confidence, and showed them that they can overcome the situations they face daily.”

A Foundation for Belonging

We saw the difference, but also systematically tracked it. In 2023, after surveying 232 participants from the painting workshops, the numbers confirmed what I was witnessing:

  • over 95% reported very good or good levels of trust with their neighbors, nearly 97% reported strong cooperation,
  • more than 95% felt solidarity in their community, and
  • approximately 93% reported progress in social integration between Colombians and Venezuelans.

The statistics, compelling as they were, couldn’t capture moments like watching an elderly Colombian man receive help painting his house from Venezuelan neighbors, or seeing children from both communities collaborate on a mural depicting the Cartagena sunset, symbols of a shared place they were building together.

People began paying attention not just to how their own homes looked, but to their blocks, their gathering spaces, their shared environment. There was a pride and connection to the place. People felt a sense of belonging and they were more likely to stay in their communities rather than continuing to migrate elsewhere.

Perhaps the most powerful testimony came from a Colombian woman named Zulay in the Juana Rangel neighborhood in Cúcuta:

“This has been a process of integration with the community. We’ve come together, and now you can feel the harmony and change in the neighborhood. It’s been a wonderful experience, truly. I’m very grateful because we’ve learned a lot from the Venezuelan migrants, who are people we work hand in hand with.”

What we saw, in bright, vibrant color, is that creating something together, something visible, something that said, “we belong here,” could bridge divides.

Looking Ahead

Funding for Casa Pintada ended in January 2025, when policy and budget cuts were made across the U.S. foreign assistance portfolio. We were in the midst of collecting endline data from eight neighborhoods, data that I believe would have reflected the continued, positive impact of this work.

Even without that data, just seeing it, Casa Pintada proved that beauty in the built environment isn’t just decoration, it’s infrastructure for social cohesion. When Venezuelan and Colombian families transformed houses together, they were building more than aesthetic improvements.

They were constructing trust, cooperation, and integration, and building a new opportunity for stability.