Climate Action Peru Project #19080

Agroforestry the Peruvian Amazon

by Alianza Arkana

Project Report | Feb 20, 2018
Reforesting and Regenerating Santa Clara

By Charlotte Biren | Communications Coordinator

Reforesting Santa Clara

"Los arboles están creciendo muy rápido, pronto vamos a tener un terreno deforestado con bosque de producción permanente para garantizar el banco de semillas. Nuestro animales también están aumentando. Eso se llama permacultura."

"The trees are growing quickly, soon we will have a previously deforested land turned into a forest that will become a permanent seed bank. Our animals are increasing in number. This is called permaculture."

Marcos Urquia Maynas, our director of Permaculture, is excited and confident by the strong start to 2018. Marcos is working closely with several exceptional Shipibo youth leaders from the Community of Santa Clara. The team has begun the final stage of setting up the Permaculture site in Santa Clara with the goal to reforest one hectare of land in 2018.

In addition to the reforestation project, the youth leaders of Santa Clara are also working on the research and analysis of an ecological chicken rearing coop. They are collaborating with us on assessing best practices and addressing climate conditions of the Amazon to refine a prototype that can survive and thrive in the community.

We have begun the transition of the permaculture site to the community of Santa Clara and with the help of Marcos, we are putting on workshops explaining the principes of permaculture in a culturally relevant way. These workshops are starting this week and we are looking forward to analyzing this first workshops to make these workshops interactive, accesible, and motivating so people in the community can see the value of permaculture in their own lives and gardens.

Making Preparations in Santa Clara

Youth Leaders of Permaculture

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Nov 21, 2017
Working with Indigenous Youth Partners to Regenerate

By Charlotte Biren | Communications Coordinator

Project planning in pairs

It's a cloudy Saturday morning here in Yarinacocha, and our three Santa Clara Volunteers eagerly await the arrival of the Santa Clara Youth Association. After two months of getting to know the Youth Association and gauging interest in community led intiatives, the volunteers decided to bring everyone to Yarinacocha to host a workshop on Project Design and Planning.

These past months, the volunteers and youth have spent time together discussing community needs, evaluating potentials for alternative economic opportunities, and observing the interests of the youth in terms of project creation. The Youth Association brainstormed projects for reforestation, sustainable food sources, eco-tourism, and cultural preservation.

On Saturday, November 4th, the volunteers hosted an interactive workshop on Project Design and Planning at Casa AMETRA from 8am-3pm. There were approximately 20 youth from Santa Clara present for the workshop, with an even split between young men and women. Here the volunteers discussed strategies and best practices for creating community based projects. The youth all came to the workshop with a sense of the projects they wanted to see happen in Santa Clara.

Youth worked in small groups, in pairs, and in the whole group to think of their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to implementing community based initiatives. Volunteers and youth also fraternized for a lunch in Yarinacocha where everyone got hang out with each other and get to know new faces. The workshop concluded with an interactive role playing game, where the youth engaged in conflict resolution strategies as they all pretended to be planning for their Anniversario, or Annual Community Celebration.

The volunteers were cognizant of how this initial workshop on project planning would be the beginning of a greater process of equipping the Santa Clara Youth Association with the skills needed to design and execute projects. Furthermore, the volunteers have been thinking of a greater community initiative on how to bring these technical skills to the community over a long period of time.

As the year comes to a close, volunteers, interns, staff, and partners at Alianza Arkana have thinking critically about being involved in the Shipibo Communities we collaborate with for the coming year of 2018.

With that, we are currently evaluating our past work in Santa Clara, analyzing potentials for new collaborations in Betania, and analyzing potentials for new collaborations in Paohyan. We are thinking about our role as an NGO and about a collaboration that is led by our indigenous partners. As we move into 2018, we are excited to have more workshops, seminars, and educational events that provide Shipibo community partners with the skills and access they need to address community needs on their own.

We are excited to continue sharing our progress on our Regenerating the Peruvian Amazon project. We are also looking forward to sharing our new plans for 2018 and ways for you to get involved as we continue to collaborate with Shipibo communities.

Rocio, 22, designing a project to sell her artwork

Our volunteer, Nepheli explaining steps to plans

Everyone at the end of a successful workshop!

Links:

Santa Clara Youth Association Project Planning Workshop Photos

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Aug 24, 2017
Regenerative Sanitation in Nueva Betania

By BRBest | Regenerative Solutions Specialist

Hardwood arriving in the Nueva Betania Port

This past July we renewed our partnership with UNICEF to continue constructing 'Ecological Bathrooms' in the Shipibo-Konibo community of Nueva Betania (pop. 391). Over the next three months our Ecological Sanitation team, lead by Orestes Rengifo Cauper, will be constructing 60 complete bathrooms; one for each household in the community. This will be third of four UNICEF partnership communities that will colloborate in the construction of Ecological Bathrooms community-wide.

Nueva Betania floods seasonally, so each bathroom includes an elevated double-vault composting toilet, a bathing platform, and a spout for clean water. The bathing platform is built atop a 'banana circle' greywater garden to filter and reuse the washwater. The whole system is built above the 30-year flood line to ensure that it can be used year-round.

Community members coming together to collaborate with Orestes and his team on all steps of the project.

This project was born from the collective work of Orestes, his team, and myself from the first pilot composting toilet we built together in 2008. Later in 2012, Orestes shared with me that it was his dream to help every Shipibo-Konibo recieve an Ecological Bathroom. Support from people like you have made it possible for us to follow this collective dream that is becoming a reality.

As our project developed from pilot to viable solution we are now seeing it being adopted by local government municipalities, thanks to the policy work of our ally UNICEF. We hope to soon guide this project to the community of Santa Clara to complement the Regenerative Agriculture and Education that is taking place.

Thank you all for the support!

With gratitude,

Community members work together to unload the wood

Organizing the wood for each Ecological Bathroom

Each family helps build their own

Bathing platform in front of Composting Toilet

Links:

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