The Jakon Rate Center for Shipibo-Konibo Studies

Jakón néte jatíbi: A life-giving good day, space and time everyone,

Jakon Rate / Manuela, Soi Sama / Delia, and the Asociación Jakon Rate/Noya Nete team wish you all the best as the periodic rains begin to mark the end of a very dry dry-season!

With the ongoing economic uncertainty we are initiating actions to provide staple crops of banana, plantain, yuca, corn, and sweet potato for the whole extended family on our recently acquired land. A few small yuca gardens have already been planted on the first 3.4 hectare (8.4 acre) plot of land that was purchased last year. We were also able to harvest some mango and a wild purple potato called sacha papa, and collect fish periodically with nets until the quarantine prohibited us from visiting the land during the height of the flood season, and the best time for fishing. Two months later we were allowed to move freely back and forth to the land.

The day the lockdown went into effect we had scheduled to sign the contracts for a large area of land, consisting of three separate plots next to our original plot. In August, when the public registry reopened, we were able to finally purchase the land. This area is nearly 20 hectares (49 acres) with another 30+ hectares of untitled floodplain that we are able to use for seasonal agriculture and perennial crops like camu camu and aguaje. One of the three new plots includes a 5 hectare (12 acre) food forest with well established oranges, lemons, grapefruit, cashew, caimitos, pomarrosas-rose apples, cacao, and other food sources!

Now we are cleaning the food forest, as it had been abandoned for a few years prior to our purchase, to prepare and plant multiple gardens of staple food crops. We will also build a small traditional house with a shebon leaf roof and a cool raised floor made of pona palm trunks. This house will serve as Manuela’s first official home on the land and will provide a space for family members to stay and keep an eye on the land while working to create food sovereignty for all of us as we begin to construct the foundations for The Jakon Rate Center For Shipibo-Konibo Cultural Studies!

Please help us to provide food for Manuela, Delia, and all of our families as we clean the food forest and establish staple crops to help sustain our families through the coming rainy season.

We need your help to cover our basic food needs, as well as funds to prepare our land for planting, and when possible, create a topographic map of the land so we can begin to create a permaculture design for the land and begin creating Manuela’s dream.

Our goal is to raise $40,000 by the end of the year!

As a way to provide this support we welcome you to make a donation that can be applied to joining us in the future once boders have opened and we have defined our schedule. This could be done through a one-time donation or a series of monthly donations.

With love,

The Jakon Rate Family