Strengthening the Carijona People

One of the objectives of the project is to promote the strengthening of the local government and culture. In order to achieve this, the community aims to revive their old cultural alliances. First, with the Cabiyarí people in the Jirijirimo region in Vaupés, a crucial step for the recovery of their traditional knowledge and rituals. Second, with the Carijona-Koreguaje people in Solano, Caquetá, from whom they expect to learn about the political organization and their relationship with institutions such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Environment.

The project also has the purpose to implement a local research strategy focused on the territory and local resources. In this way, it intends to update the cartography and limits of the resguardo, to make flora and natural resources inventories, to start nurseries for the recovery of seeds, to restore degraded areas (pasturelands and areas fumigated with glyphosate), to implement a bird sightseeing program and generate information to regulate the management of natural resources.

In order to develop the local economy, this project proposes an experimentation in the transformation of local products and its marketing and establishing connection with regional and national markets. In addition, to generate local pedagogical materials for the recovery of the Carijona language, the project proposes implementing formal and informal learning strategies about nature and the chagra as well as the production of didactic materials to activate the use of the language and the oral traditions. The documentation is done in Carijona language as a means to respond to the interest of the community in formulating a plan for the recovery of the local language with the participation of families, the school and all the community.

Today the project has already developed several capacity-building workshops with the community in transformation of local products and marketing, ecological restoration and bird sightseeing. The cultural exchange program has also started with a first meeting with the Cabiyarí people. Many of the people in the Carijona community of Puerto Nare have begun to register their knowledge about the forest and the chagra so they can generate information to formulate recovery and restoration plans as well as to identify how to strengthen their cultural practices.