Guachené

Guachené is a municipality in the north of Cauca, one of the youngest in Colombia: it was created in December 2006 when it split from Caloto. With a mostly Afro-Colombian population and a little over 20,000 inhabitants, it stands in the industrial corridor of the north of the department, near Santander de Quilichao and the boundary with Valle del Cauca, where agro-industry and factories coexist with a community of strong cultural roots. It is a small and recent municipality whose profile, however, has reached well beyond its borders thanks to sport.

That profile has proper names in football: Guachené is the land of Yerry Mina, a defender for the Colombian national team at the 2018 World Cup, shaped in local football; and from the north of Cauca, from the nearby corregimiento of Ciénaga Honda, comes also Dávinson Sánchez, another Colombian international. On the strength of that talent, the municipality has gained grassroots infrastructure: the sports foundation created by Yerry Mina built in 2021 a complex with a swimming pool and several pitches for hundreds of children, to which municipal venues and sports development centres are added.

In 2022, ACES distinguished Guachené as American Town of Sport, with the title made official in Turin at the start of that year. The distinction, of American scope, recognised the commitment of a young municipality of modest resources to sport as a tool of inclusion and social advancement, and inscribed Guachené in the continental network of ACES América.