By Dr Paul Roberts | Director Intercultural Education
Dear all
As always many thanks for your support.
The last three months have been uncharacteristically very hot in Pucallpa, in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon. Usually these months are cooler as the rainy season approaches. Sadly, I think this is climate change really starting to bite here. As always the people most affected are the indigenous and other vulnerable populations.
If you have not already seen it, please look at our new video of the work in Santa Clara. It was made by a highly professional videographer who has just finished working with us for three months.
I have just come back from a two day visit with 25 people from the Universeum of Gothenburg, in Sweden, to the Shipibo community of Santa Clara. This was their second visit in two weeks and is part of our support to the community alongside the permaculture/intercultural education project we have there.
The visit was a great success - see the photos, where the Swedes also shared aspects of their culture (¡like Papa Noel!). Also see more photos on our Facebook site:
The other really good news from the community is that the young people there are increasingly taking intiatives and breaking out of the cycle of dependency on external help. They have recently formed an association and want to talk to us about their ideas for creating sustainable livelihoods in the community, which could include further development of ecotourism in the community and the cultivation and sale of medicinal plants.
Our intercultural book for Shipibo primary school children continues to progress well. We now have all 30 paintings of plant spirits from Shipibo artist Lastenia Canayao (see photo for another example of her work) and also 30 botanical drawings of the plants. These will now be sent to New York City, where we are working with the Shipibo Conibo Center for Contemporay Arts there, who are helping us design and produce the book.
We have also created a strategic plan to increase the number of Shipibo people working in Alianza Arkana. This can be viewed in the accompanying document. We have already appointed one talented young Shipibo woman to work with us - first as an apprentice in the work in eco-social justice and with young people and then to take on a key role in one of these areas.
Finally, we had a very successful staff retreat last Friday focussed on funding and the future of the organization. We continue to attract high quality volunteers and researchers, including more Peruvians who can stay much longer term with us as they do not have issues with visas to be able to stay in Peru.
Any questions/comments please contact me at: paul@alianzaarkana.org
Best wishes
Dr Paul Roberts
Director Intercultural Education
Alianza Arkana
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