Ricardo Andr\u00e9s Tabares grew up on a farm in the countryside near Bogot\u00e1, Colombia before rebels forced his family to leave. First the rebels demanded food, then the family\u2019s livestock. When Andr\u00e9s was 13 years old, the rebel leader demanded his father give up their 3-year-old daughter. At that point, Andr\u00e9s\u2019 father refused to comply with their demands. When the rebel leader became angry and threatened the family, the Tabares family grabbed what they could carry and left everything else behind.<\/p>\n
The family hitchhiked into Bogota and found themselves living a substance existence in the city\u2019s slum. Andr\u00e9s\u2019 father thought his family in Bogot\u00e1 would take them in, but that wasn\u2019t the case. Eventually Andr\u00e9s\u2019 father was able to find work and saved enough money to purchase a small 20 x 20 foot piece of land in the barrio called Cazuca.<\/p>\n
Andr\u00e9s says \u201cThings are better now and we have what is most important \u2013 a floor and a roof to live under.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cComing from the countryside has been hard. We were used to the river and raising our animals. But here in the city it is very different because you can\u2019t even keep a small chicken\u2026 there\u2019s no place to keep it or money to feed it.\u201d <\/em>Andr\u00e9s continued, \u201cHere, everything comes in a bag\u2026 water in a bag, milk in bag. On the farm we ate what we grew. Here, everything costs money. If you have money, you buy stuff. If you don\u2019t, you can\u2019t.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Others in the barrio have escaped the violence of rebels just like Andr\u00e9s\u2019 family. Unfortunately, they left rebels in the countryside only to inherit \u201csocial cleansing\u201d groups within the barrios. These groups take the law into their own hands by trying to silence people and keep them under their control. Andr\u00e9s says: \u201c\u2026there\u2019s a war to win, and we\u2019ll win it: for all those doing something positive for our community, and above all, for our families.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Because of the threats to him, Andr\u00e9s practices capoeira, a Brazilian martial art. But even though he fears these cleansing groups, he expresses what\u2019s on his mind through his guitar music and his rap. He takes on the problems of his neighborhood through his music and speaks out about what\u2019s happening in his barrio.<\/p>\n Andr\u00e9s says, \u201cMy dream is to be a great rap artist, but that is just a part of my dreams. The other part is to help my people in Cazuca, the people of my neighborhood by singing and rapping the truth.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n As a 13-year-old, Andr\u00e9s created a video entitled Rapping At Fear<\/em> for a project entitled Beyond Borders: Personal Stories from a Small Planet. Eleven short films were chosen. The films were produced by teenagers who are overcoming huge obstacles that have defined their lives. The teens shot, edited, and wove their documentaries with animation and archival footage to tell their personal stories on fear and insecurity.<\/p>\n After filming Rapping at Fear<\/em>, Andr\u00e9s joined City TV Bogota<\/em> as a children\u2019s TV host where he worked for about a year. He continues to perform rap in Cazuca and belongs to a theater group in Taller de Vida.<\/p>\n Andr\u00e9s could view himself as a victim and succumb to the violence and destructive lifestyle around him. But he has chosen to rise above what is wrong and work at making it right. It isn\u2019t easy, but he has the passion and the belief to help make it happen.<\/p>\n Life isn\u2019t easy. And it isn\u2019t fair. But it is your life, and you can choose to live it victoriously. Let Andr\u00e9s\u2019 story inspire you to take the steps you need to take<\/strong><\/em>in order to move forward with intention and determination. You, too, can live your Ultimate Life!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Learn how you can hear all the presentations at The Ultimate Life Company and how you can create your Ultimate Life<\/p>\n at <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ricardo Andr\u00e9s Tabares grew up on a farm in the countryside near Bogot\u00e1, Colombia before rebels forced his family to leave. First the rebels demanded food, then the family\u2019s livestock. When Andr\u00e9s was 13 years old, the rebel leader demanded his father give up their 3-year-old daughter. At that point, Andr\u00e9s\u2019 father refused to comply […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1364,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,4,5,2,6,7,8],"tags":[32,33,34,35,28,10,11,14,15,36,37,16,17,19],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alternative-health","category-crazy-hat-videos","category-esoteric","category-hot-topics","category-inspirational","category-quote-of-the-day","category-team-help","category-ultimate-life","tag-bogota","tag-capoeira","tag-cazuca","tag-colombia","tag-empower-network","tag-ginny-dye","tag-inspirational","tag-personal-development","tag-personal-growth","tag-rapping-at-fear","tag-ricardo-andres-tabares","tag-self-help","tag-success","tag-ultimate-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kindlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kindlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kindlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kindlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1364"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kindlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kindlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kindlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions\/33"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kindlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kindlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/kindlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}