On March 8, for the first time in Colombia’s history, an artificial intelligence candidate appeared on ballot papers across the country. 

Gaitana IA (AI) ran for the Indigenous seat in the Senate and the House of Representatives in the northern state of Sucre.

While Gaitana did not win a seat in either of the country’s legislative bodies, it has sparked debate about the role of AI in Colombian politics.

With the ballots counted, Gaitana won a total of under 3,000 votes – less than 2% of the total votes for the Indigenous seat – suggesting that many people remain skeptical of this new digital approach.

Many questions have emerged surrounding Gaitana, such as why the Registraduría—the Colombian entity in charge of validating and accepting candidates—permitted this unprecedented candidacy, or what the intentions were behind the AI.

“Many local media outlets talked about an AI going to Congress, but that is not the case; they are humans leading the project,” Gaitana’s co-founder, Natalia Aase, told The Bogotá Post. 

“It is actually a consensus tool developed by our community members, between 14 and 25 years old, from the Senú community of Reparo Torrente, in Coveñas,” she explained.

Rather than planning for the AI to assume office, Gaitana was devised as a democratic experiment underpinned by real human candidates

Aase detailed how the platform was designed to work: Colombian citizens could subscribe through a link to virtually participate and propose various debates regarding topics such as healthcare, women’s rights, and more. These interactions would also feed the AI database.

Once an initiative reached a collective consensus, the people occupying the seats in Congress would “decide the direction of the proposed laws.”

The two humans represented by Gaitana were Carlos Redondo Rincón, a Mechatronics Engineer from the Senú community, who was running for Senate, and Luz Rincón, an Embera-Katio Indigenous sociologist, who was seeking a seat in the House of Representatives.

The co-founder of Gaitana also revealed that the team conducted deep research into global democratic models, such as the one in Norway, and compared them with their own community dynamics.

As the research advanced, the team found that their community in Senú had already established a model of social interaction that worked well, prompting them to launch a digital project modeled on their own practices.  

This meant digitizing their traditional way of reaching a consensus; in the Senú community, men, women, and youth gather around tables to discuss specific topics, such as women’s health or local fishing.

“Gaitana IA is not a generative AI; it is a participatory AI. What does that mean? Well, it is not ChatGPT. Instead, it takes the information provided by the users and organizes it,” pointed out Aase. “Transparency and security are the most important things for us; that is why we use blockchain technology—a system of blocks—to power this platform.”

According to Aase, the project was born from a motivation to prevent corruption and explained that with ‘Gaitana AI’, the decisions are not made by a single person but must be approved by at least 100 people. 

“You might be able to manipulate one individual, but you cannot manipulate a hundred if you don’t even know who they are,” she concluded.

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In the north of Bogotá, a new restaurant offers an experience that exists nowhere else in Latin America. 

Sombras, or ‘shadows’, is a high-end eatery run entirely by blind people, offering a unique experience that aims to raise awareness about sight loss and the challenges faced by those living with this condition.

For 90 minutes, diners are provided a sensory experience through a six-course menu while sitting in complete darkness

This project, part of the Seratta Group, costs approximately 325,000 COP (around US$88) and seats around 20 people at a time.

According to the DANE (National Administrative Department of Statistics), in 2025, the labor gap for people with disabilities was critical: roughly 80% of the population was unemployed. Of the 20% who are employed, many relied on informal work as a way of living.

Accordingly, Sombra’s primary goal is to increase job opportunities for people with visual impairment, even offering a ‘BLINDKEDIN’ on their website to promote inclusion in workspaces and bridge the gap between companies and workers.

Into the unknown

Entering the restaurant, guests are asked to place their belongings in lockers as one of the hosts voice announces, “The main ingredient is trust.” Cellphones, smartwatches, or any other distracting items are forbidden from being used in Sombras. Bags are stored as well, so as not to create obstacles as the staff move around the room unassisted. 

Right ahead is the path to darkness; the atmosphere is filled with fear, expectation, curiosity, and excitement. Not knowing what lies inside, guests must simply walk into the unknown.

Taking small steps, hands over the shoulders of a man simply identified as ‘Agent X,’ diners are shown to their seat. Finally, they are left alone at a table that can only be perceived through touch.

A mix of music, played by a blind DJ, is the perfect accompaniment to the dishes and cocktails placed down one by one. 

Each course is served while a voice guides the guests through the dark: “Take this, move your hand to the left.” 

Scenarios described over speakers guide guests through different worlds, prompting them to reflect on how they perceive the dark. Some courses are designed to evoke childhood memories; as diners eat, the flavors, aromas, and narrations conjure up images of their grandmother’s warm soup or the salty smell of seaside holidays. 

Without the visual cue of the food, flavors meld in novel ways, and everything tastes more intense.  

Between courses, a sense of emptiness can settle in. While the mind tries to imagine colors, dimensions, and even the appearance of fellow diners, the silence and darkness produce a feeling of loneliness and a sense of nothingness. Time passes, but without a watch, it is impossible to measure. 

One cycles through intense feelings and emotions as the brain fights to understand what is happening around it. Placed in the shoes of those who live in darkness every day, guests soon realize they can effortlessly perform the ritual of eating without opening their eyes.

Beyond sight

Following the experience, the hosts revealed themselves. 

John Jairo García and Jonathan Benavides (who is responsible for personalizing the ‘Agent X’ character) are in charge of guiding guests through the journey; both men are blind and were trained to lead visitors through an immersive experience of self-reflection, self-knowledge, and incredible food.

“I am here because God gave me the opportunity. Before this, I used to work on the streets… I sang on buses, and I was also an informal street vendor,” García told The Bogotá Post after the experience. Benavides added that before joining the team, he worked as an informal door-to-door salesman.

“We try not only to serve food but to move hearts and emotions. The social perspective in our country toward people with disabilities. In this case, visual impairment is very biased,” confirmed Jonathan during the interview.

At the end, the staff arrives with a message, they invite you to be thankful for seeing colors, for seeing the world that surrounds you. As some tears begin to fall, the last reflection is a call to empathy: “Change your way of thinking and your whole life will change”.

In fact, the blind dining experience at Sombras forces more than self-reflection; it triggers a biological change in the visitor. According to research hosted by the National Library of Medicine, the adult brain has a “rapid plasticity” that triggers almost immediately when vision is blocked. In the 90 minutes spent at Sombras, diners begin to perceive the world through their other senses, assigning “visual power” to taste and touch.

Through this experience, guests can truly empathize – if only for a brief moment – with what it means to lose vision. 

“We try to make the people who visit our restaurant understand that we, even with a disability, can also be useful to society,” concluded Jonathan.

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Bogotá, Colombia – On February 10, the Grenoble Prosecutor’s Office launched a worldwide call for victims or witnesses of Jacques Leveugle, a teacher arrested in 2024 in France and accused of sexually assaulting at least 89 minors around the world since 1967.

During a press conference, French prosecutor Étienne Manteaux said that the sexual predator was reported in 2023 by one of his nephews, who discovered a USB drive containing written memoirs, pictures, and other documents related to the abuse of teenagers. 

The French Embassy in Colombia called for witnesses to come forward to identify potential abuse victims in the country, as Leveugle worked as a teacher in Bogotá on two occasions between 1996 and 2023.

The suspect was living in Morocco when the investigation began, but had spent his life moving between Switzerland, Germany, Portugal, Algeria, Nigeria, the Philippines, New Caledonia, Colombia, and France. In all of these countries, he allegedly targeted minors while working in educational or social roles.

Authorities revealed that in his “autobiography,” the alleged abuser gave horrendous details about 89 teenagers, between 13 and 17 years old, being manipulated and abused from 1967 to 2022.

“We need Jacques Leveugle’s name to be known because the objective is to reach the victims and encourage them to come forward,” Manteaux confirmed.

He said that 40 of the 89 victims had been identified and that authorities were working to find the rest. 

“Sometimes names are not even mentioned; we are facing a wall in certain situations… This call for witnesses is to allow victims we haven’t been able to identify to come forward,” the prosecutor explained. “Perhaps not all victims are recorded in these documents.”

Manteaux also said that the man, who has been under arrest since 2024 and never officially graduated as an educator, also confessed in his writings to killing two women: his mother and one of his aunts.

The uphill battle to find victims in Colombia

Investigations revealed that Jacques Leveugle spent several years living in and visiting Colombia between 1996 and 2000, and again from 2000 to 2023. 

In an interview with Caracol Radio, the prosecutor confirmed that the sexual predator worked as a French teacher in a shelter for children and teenagers in the capital city, Bogotá.

“It’s hard to reach victims outside France; that’s why we have made a special invitation to Colombian victims. We need them and their experiences to understand what this man really did,” he said during the call, adding that they decided to take a “traditional” approach due to the difficulty of reaching witnesses.

Authorities are also trying to determine if Leveugle had collaborators and what his “modus operandi” was to ensure that none of the teenagers ever complained or reported the abuse to the police.

Latin America Reports contacted the Grenoble Prosecutor’s Office, and they confirmed that the investigation remains active and ongoing in Colombia. They also committed to briefing the media on any significant breakthroughs as they continue to work toward identifying more victims internationally.

The French Embassy in Bogotá has shared the channels established to find Colombian victims:

Anyone with information or seeking to report an incident can communicate via email at sr-grenoble-leveugle@gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr or by calling the international hotline at +33 800 005 321.

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