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ECUADOR 2001 Annual Report Contents

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Cultural Heritage Validation Workshops

GO coordinates community workshops with elders and youth that provide an opportunity for traditional knowldege to be passed on, encouraging youth to cultivate their cultural heritage and learn from their elders while illuminating the beauty and validity of ancestral wisdom.

Secoya youth, elders and GO staff at a Cultural Heritage Festival

One effective activity involves everyone bringing one plant with which s/he has had a first-hand experience. One by one, the group shares the knowledge related to each plant. By the end of the circle, the common body of knowledge in the community has been heightened and everyone has learned the uses and preparations of new plants found growing in their rainforest or mountain backyards. Elders teach of the plants and the group practices in preparing herbal remedies.

These workshops are critical in sustaining the knowledge of the forest within the communites that are responsible for stewardship of the forest, and have been a major factor in the preservation of the forests in indigenous territories where Osanimi works.

This year GO is coordinating a week-long workshop with the Secoya People of Ecuador and people from the surrounding community to inaugurate the new ancestral lodge and to share accumulated botanical and cultural wisdom. Attendance is expected to be up to 200 people encompassing several generations of Secoya Families as well as youth from the surrounding Quechua and Shuar communities.