Education
We see education as fundamental to the defence of the Amazon Forest and our ancestral culture, as the system of thought implemented in the curriculum generates the interaction between people and their ecosystems.
Indigenous peoples have our own educational pedagogy that allowed our communities and the forest to thrive for thousands of years. The territories of ancestral peoples are rich in an understanding unknown to the Western world; knowledge that allows us to live in harmony with nature. This wisdom has traditionally been passed down the generations orally, in pre-dawn medicine ceremonies or during our daily activities such as weaving chambira fibre, gathering clay, or walking in the forest. Unfortunately, with the implementation of the monopolized Western educational system, the last generation that carries this knowledge is becoming extinct without passing it on to the youth, who are being educated in cities.
One of the main reasons that indigenous people need money is to educate their children. Going to university is very expensive for indigenous peoples. The need to fund this type of education, which was introduced by the outside world, pushes people into felling their forest and is a big driver of deforestation.
We have seen that some Siekopai who study outside go on to exploit the natural resources of indigenous communities, using their university education as justification. So, the higher education system is a double threat: people cut down trees to fund their children’s education in a system of thought that itself leads to more destruction.
The current world situation shows us that monopolised education is not working. We can see this in climate change, in war, in extractivism. If we keep going with the same model, the same disasters will keep happening, more pandemics, floods and earthquakes. These are the reactions of Mother Nature, telling us that something is wrong.
The Western education model isn’t relevant to us as Siekopai. Our people have been fragmented territorially and culturally. Our traditions are disappearing by the day. The State doesn’t understand our reality, the intricacies of each indigenous nationality, it only sees our world from the outside. We urgently need the State to implement intercultural, bilingual education in Spanish and native indigenous languages. Our educational model should respond to the existential and imminent risk of the disappearance of the Siekopai Nation. Only in this way can we preserve the knowledge of the Itipaa′ikӗ (great spiritual leader), such as the drinking of yokó. These customs and practices should be at the heart of our education. The right to educational autonomy is vital to implement a model that meets our needs.
Our vision is to provide our children with a quality education that respects nature and rescues our ancestral culture. We seek to preserve our identity based on the knowledge of our ancestors and elders, who are our strength and our wisdom. With this aim, we are creating educational materials, texts and songs containing ancestral advice and stories; materials that are relevant to our territory, to our natural environment, to our life as Siekopai. Education based on ancestral advice strengthens the individual, the family and the Siekopai Nation.
We are working to transform the education in our community and implement a curriculum that combines ancient Siekopai wisdom with aspects of modern knowledge. The goal is to train young people who are respectful of Mother Nature and our own worldview, who are also capable of creating innovative and sustainable solutions for the 21st century. We want our young people to be so rooted in our ancestral culture that those who study at university will want to return to the community and use their education for the benefit of our people and our forest.
The aim is to instil in the children the consciousness that our territory matters, that they should have respect for our elders, for Mother Nature, for our own cosmovision. We know that the children are like seeds; if we plant in them the idea that they should cut down the jungle to plant oil palm, they will go on to do that. Instead, we are teaching them that we must take care of the jungle in order to thrive. We hope to instil a value for life, a value that teaches people to be different, to think, and to do what they really love.
In 2018, a group of young people in our community, the Sëra Foundation, began organising school workshops for intergenerational exchange with our elders, parents and children.
In 2022, the members of the Sëra Foundation visited the Bosque Escuela Pambiliño, a forest school that offers experiential education and sees the forest as the main source of knowledge. This was an inspiring experience for us and showed us the possibilities of alternative education. We have stayed in touch with the founders of the Bosque Escuela Pambiliño, who continue to guide us on our journey.
In 2023, we worked with a group of volunteers to build a new interactive educational space for our youngest children, complete with an ancestral kitchen. Among the volunteers were experts in the Montessori educational method, who provided three months of intensive training for our teachers. A key figure in this project was Liliana Piaguaje, a member of the Sëra Foundation, who is completing a degree in alternative education.
Word about our new nursery school is spreading and we’ve had parents from other indigenous nationalities contact us about including their children in our classes. We’re excited by the possibility of creating an educational space where children and parents from various indigenous groups can come together to share ancestral stories and knowledge! We are fighting to get our nursery school recognized legally by the Ministry of Education, but the State is putting endless bureaucratical obstacles in our path. Having our nursery school recognized by the State would help us obtain some much-needed resources, such as salaries for our volunteer teachers. We will keep fighting for this to happen.
Our next step is to transform the school for our older children, which is called Cecib Sewaya. Our dream is to create an intercultural college in our community for young people of all indigenous nationalities.
We are looking for long-term volunteers (3-6 months) to teach English at our school. If you have other skills to offer our educational project, please contact us.