Jhonnatan Fernando Lopez Vega

This study examines how rural youth in Puerto Carreño, Vichada (Colombian Orinoco) experience, negotiate, and contest transformations linked to energy, education, and labor. Fieldwork documented two intersecting arenas: a technical-vocational high school focused on renewable energies and a bioenergy electrification project using eucalyptus biomass. Methods included archival research, institutional document collection, audiovisual materials, interviews with officials, educators, parents, community leaders, students, and alumni, and participant observation at educational and civic events. Preliminary findings identify three interrelated dynamics. First, vocationalization of public secondary education reflects regional shifts toward technical curricula tied historically to extractive and agro-industrial projects. Second, rapid expansion of non-native eucalyptus plantations has generated substantial socio-ecological harms (loss of savannah, stream pollution, curtailed hunting and fishing, deforestation, and land conflicts) that contrast with official claims of green electrification and sovereignty. Third, youth aspirations and labor trajectories reveal ambivalence: while some students express interest in the energy sector, few aim for biomass work and recent graduates have not entered the plant’s workforce, with many rural residents engaged in precarious, low-paid plantation or field labor. The research highlights disjunctions between policy rhetoric and local realities, offering implications for more participatory approaches to vocational education, land use, and energy governance.