Help the Shipibo Regenerate from the Pandemic

Dear donors and friends of the Shipibo People,

We hope this report from the field finds you well. We have received the latest updates from our friends at Asomashk and are happy to share these with you.

Your incredible support to this fundraising campaign for the Shipibo healers and their “Onanyabo in Action” initiative thus far has allowed Asomashk to send 10 intercultural health brigades to far away Shipibo communities and attend well over 5000 patients. Asomashk tells us that through these visits they managed to reach 98% of the Shipibo communities they had planned to visit, with very positive results, as we reported previously

Therefore, during the last few months, Asomashk was able to redirect its focus from community visits to a more concealed but central purpose of their initiative: to work on consolidating the unity of the Shipibo-Konibo indigenous people through the recovery, revaluation and strengthening of their unique cultural and medical tradition.

Every month since June, Asomashk organized a large two-day gathering, which included an ayahuasca ceremony, for representatives from different Shipibo organizations, including key political Shipibo leaders. The spiritual retreats, as Asomashk calls the gatherings, were held with the objective to generate a space for reflection on the use and practice of their ancestral medicine, their cultural knowledge, cosmovision, and spirituality in the current context. The gatherings aim for cultural empowerment and seek to harmonize or create a balance among Shipibo-Konibo leaders. It was gratifying to see that increasingly more Shipibo leaders and organization participated in the gatherings, and that the events, among others, “managed to resolve differences between the leaders of different indigenous organizations”.

The context in Peru over the last 50 years (and beyond) has been one of largely marginalizing indigenous peoples. In the mid-seventies, the state recognized indigenous communities or villages. However, Peru has yet to legally recognize indigenous peoples and grant them autonomy over the territories that they traditionally inhabit. This is in stark contrast to international law and the realities in other Amazonian countries. The context in Peru has led to fragmentation and the existence of a multitude of different political federations of the same ethnicity. The Shipibo-Konibo, one of Peru´s numerically largest Amazonian indigenous peoples - as well as other Peruvian indigenous peoples - are in a process of seeking political unity and the recognition as one people and their territory - the Shipibo Nation. Asomashk is playing an important part in this vital process, and your support to Asomashk is crucial. We are greatly thankful for your ongoing support.

On behalf of ASOMASHK

Chaikuni Institute & Temple of the Way of Light 

Dear friends and supporters,

Since we last wrote to you, the ancestral Shipibo healers of Asomashk and their “Onanyabo in Action” initiative continued to reach faraway Shipibo communities to provide free and holistic medical treatment, offering a combination of ancestral healing techniques and standard medical care.

In our last report we were excited to tell you that Asomashk found additional support for this intercultural health initiative from the Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund. Thus, even though donations here on GlobalGiving have slowed down somewhat, Asomashk was able to continue its important health brigades to Shipibo communities in the Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon. Thanks to the combined funding Asomashk was able to increase the frequency of the brigades.

The seventh health brigade visited 13 communities in the upper Ucayali River during almost three weeks in February, attending to 550 patients. The eight brigade set out in March to reach 11 communities in the Callería District, offering treatment to 588 people. The ninth brigade went to Yarinacocha district, a bit closer to Pucallpa, capital of this region, from where Asomashk coordinates its organization and activities. During this brigade a total of 710 individuals in 16 communities were attended to. Finally, the last and longest brigade to-date travelled to 19 distant communities situated in four remote districts, from April 17th to May 16^th. Over the course of this month the healers and nurses treated 619 patients with a wide range of different ailments.  

After 10 brigades and one-and-a-half years of the initiative, our Shipibo partners shared with us some of the most important achievements and lessons learned:

• Your financial support made it possible for the brigades to alleviate many ailments and diseases in distant communities. It created hope in the communities to face the health crisis caused by the pandemic with the support of conventional and natural medicine. The response from the people in the communities is extremely positive. People express their gratitude for this unique and historic intercultural medical campaign to regions that generally lack any kind of health services.  
• Since the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic, a large percentage of the Shipibo-Konibo suffer from fear, panic, or paranoia. These psychosocial and mental illnesses importantly affect community mental health. For this reason, an Onanyabo council of wisdom keepers was created to offer therapeutic and psychosomatic treatment, rooted in the cosmovision of the Shipibo and their ancestral medical system.
• The initiative contributed to improved contact, coexistence, and unity between the Onanya healers and the Shipibo community as a whole. It also created enthusiasm among the Onanyabo healers to expand their knowledge and expertise through this novel work experience.  

Finally, we would like to transmit a direct thank you message from our partners at Asomashk:  

“We are very grateful to our cooperating allies for the project and the humanitarian action that you made possible, and for that special gift which every human being ought to impregnate its heart with as you do [...]. In this way, [your support] brings relief to our brothers and sisters who need it most, in the aftermath of the strong blow with which the coronavirus hit us, and the new normality that we must live with today, with the hope of combating this evil that prevails in the world. Our commitment is to work together for the development and well-being of our indigenous communities.”

With your help, we will keep supporting our Shipibo allies at Asomashk so they can continue to send their intercultural health brigades to distant communities. We are extremely thankful for your ongoing support.  

On behalf of ASOMASHK

Chaikuni Institute & Temple of the Way of Light