Their North is the South (World 2021, by Luca Zanetti) - Swiss Press Award
Luca Zanetti
The Loewen family with father Abram wife Eva Harms one year old Ana, eight year old Eva and six years old Abram. The family had a very good Grain and Soya harvests which allowed them to buy a home off a less fortunate family that returned to Mexico.
Universo Centro
3rd place
Photo / World
2021
Luca Zanetti
Everyone who sees them is surprised at their pale skin and fair hair, their enormous houses and their automated tractors. And also the way they talk. Some locals call them “the Germans”, but
in truth they come from Mexico; the thirty Mennonite families who emigrated to Colombia in 2016 and founded Liviney, the youngest colony in their religious community to date. They are descendants of those German, Swiss and Dutch Anabaptists who, once upon a time, fled persecution halfway round the planet. They settled here, where the state lets them build their own churches and schools (207), there is plenty of land and enough labour (206) and the grain grows so quickly in the moist savannah that they are able to produce two harvests a year.
