SDGAcademyX: AMZN001 The Living Amazon: Science, Cultures and Sustainability in Practice

Video transcript

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2. [Music]
3. Hello, everyone. My name is Nadino
4. Calapucha, and I'm a young leader of the
5. Amazonian Kichwa Nationality from the
6. Shiwakucha Community, in Ecuador. I am currently President of
7. the Amazonian Foundation KAMBAK and an author on the
8. Science Panel for the Amazon.
9. In this class,
10. I will talk about intercultural education
11. in the Amazon. Colonial education systems
12. were generally based on the
13. social homogenization and
14. standardization of teaching, without
15. taking into account the diversity of
16. knowledge systems and methods of
17. teaching. They are based on
18. unequal power structures, where a
19. type of teaching is imposed over another.
20. They do not consider the variety of languages in
21. the Amazon nor the role of the territory
22. in the learning of many communities, including
23. each of the more than 400 groups of
24. Indigenous people of the Amazon——in addition to the
25. local populations that live there.
26. They contain cultural diversity,
27. rich history, and knowledge.
28. In the 1980s and 1990s,
29. some policies were established to
30. promote intercultural education
31. in countries like Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador,
32. and Peru. Some of them, such as those in Ecuador
33. and Peru, considered the importance of
34. bilingual intercultural education.
35. However, Indigenous Peoples and Local
36. Communities are rarely included
37. in the planning processes for
38. curricula, both for school and
39. training and education programs.
40. But, there are some cases that really
41. implemented intercultural education processes
42. and that deserve to be highlighted:
43. (Example 1) Service Training
44. National Education (SENA) in Colombia.
45. SENA is an institution linked to the
46. Ministry of Labor of Colombia, and it
47. offers various trainings. To understand
48. Indigenous populations in Vaupés,
49. they applied participatory tools
50. for self-diagnosis processes
51. with local communities,
52. strengthened local studies
53. and established connections with
54. the territory, and strengthened
55. community organization processes.
56. SENA instructors participated
57. in training before the courses, and
58. they established connections with
59. Indigenous instructors. The apprentices were
60. associated with SENNOVA, where they began to
61. work on bird-watching tourism.
62. (Example 2) Local research to strengthen
63. autonomy and territorial governance
64. with Koreguaju and Nasa communities in Caquetá.
65. As part of a project with The Nature Conservancy
66. and Tropenbos to
67. strengthen local governance in the
68. fight against deforestation, they created
69. participatory spaces to implement
70. territorial management plans. After
71. some meetings, participants
72. considered that the communities themselves
73. should decide the topic, the objective, and
74. the research methodology to
75. strengthen their knowledge as a base
76. for environmental management actions.
77. There were no pre-established formats.
78. These manifestations of
79. identity and culture were fundamental
80. for governance and
81. territorial management.
82. (Example 3) The Baniwa and Koripako Indigenous School.
83. This school was designed,
84. structured, implemented, and managed
85. by the Baniwa, with the collaboration of the
86. Socio-Environmental Institute and the Federation
87. of Indigenous Organizations of the Rio Negro.
88. At school, communities
89. promote their own learning
90. process with
91. methodology "teaching through
92. investigation." This process considers that
93. children are born curious, and it values that
94. curiosity. This is different in the
95. non-Indigenous schools, where often
96. curiosity is only encouraged in
97. higher education. The school has
98. classrooms, dormitories, a library, a
99. computer laboratory and a science laboratory,
100. a place of native fish production,
101. and an agroforestry system.
102. For two months, the teachers and the
103. students live at school. Then,
104. they return to their communities, where they
105. carry out their research projects.
106. At school, there are practical and theoretical
107. classes. They learn about ancestral and Western
108. knowledge to create
109. new, intercultural knowledge.
110. They also study
111. basic disciplines of non-Indigenous schools,
112. so that they can complete their
113. studies in other schools. Some topics
114. are present in all classes:
115. politics, the rights and movements of
116. Indigenous peoples, Baniwa ethics, health politics and
117. education, and sustainable development.
118. They learn planning,
119. monitoring, and supervision skills.
120. Five languages are spoken and taught:
121. three Indigenous and two national languages.
122. In the future, the Baniwa and Koripako would like to
123. create an institute of higher education.
124. (Example 4) Finca Balkanes at the University of the
125. Amazon (Uniamazonía) and its role in the mediation of the
126. intercultural knowledge.
127. Graduates of Uniamazonía's agroecology program
128. coordinate with the
129. Balkan School, where there are dialogues of
130. knowledge with Indigenous people about
131. agricultural lots. In these cases, the
132. university farms help mediate and
133. resist biopiracy
134. in the commercialization of seeds and plants
135. developed from knowledge
136. accumulated from farmers and Indigenous communities.
137. The dialogue of knowledge
138. has also highlighted the role of
139. Indigenous women in security and
140. food sovereignty. The women in the
141. Amazon are increasingly taking over the
142. role of heads of family and leaders in
143. agricultural production.
144. (Example 5) Climate change and the struggle of Amazonian populations.
145. Indigenous peoples have
146. a close connection to their environment and, therefore,
147. they quickly identify changes
148. in the climate. Indigenous leaders are
149. key in the fight against change
150. climate. They have told their narratives and
151. influenced public policies.
152. An example is the National Plan for
153. Adaptation from Brazil, which created
154. workshops with Indigenous peoples and
155. local communities and incorporated the
156. studies they carried out showing how
157. climate change is already affecting
158. their lives. When thinking about climate
159. change, it is necessary to consider the
160. demarcation of Indigenous Territories, which
161. are the great protectors of the jungle,
162. strengthening their organizations
163. and territorial and environmental management.
164. In Brazil, the Indigenous people have increasingly
165. accessed higher education. The
166. Quota Law of 2012 made this access quite easy.
167. The presence of Indigenous people in
168. universities generates important
169. reflections about the characteristics of
170. pedagogical practices of universities and their
171. role in society. However, there are still
172. great challenges to face, such as the
173. permanence of the Indigenous people in
174. universities, which depends on financial
175. resources, so that they can continue to live
176. outside of their communities. The diversity
177. of cases mentioned in this class
178. demonstrate the importance of
179. curriculum construction and
180. training that considers
181. diverse experiences and local context.
182. To strengthen intercultural
183. education, it is necessary to: (1) value the
184. various Indigenous languages in
185. policy implementation; (2) strengthen
186. Indigenous organizations and
187. local communities; (3)
188. finance; (4) construct
189. participatory curricula;
190. (6) create spaces that facilitate
191. dialogue and decision-making between
192. different actors; (7)
193. implement intercultural education initiatives
194. in cities, facilitating access to
195. higher education.
196. [Music]
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