Category: News and events

Text: Tuija Veintie

On Tuesday, 8 October, all schools in Ecuador suspend their classes to guarantee the safety of their students, announced the Ministry of Education of Ecuador. In Pastaza province the classroom doors in schools and at the Amazon State University (UEA) have stayed closed for several days, from Thursday 3 October. Going to classes would be difficult, and possibly dangerous, because transportation in Puyo and around the province is paralysed by roadblocks and demonstrations. The demonstrations started last week after President Lenin Moreno had announced the paquetazo, a package of economic measures to reduce the fiscal deficit of the country.

The paquetazo includes tax and labor reform as well as elimination of fuel subsidies. As an immediate effect of these reforms, the fuel price rose with 100% overnight. Ecuadorian transport unions declared a national strike starting on Thursday, 3 October. The strike ended all bus, truck and taxi transportation in the country. Moreover, the bus, truck and taxi drivers blocked the roads in the main cities of the country stopping all motor traffic. The transport unions ended their strike on Friday 4 October in the evening, but civil society organisations, including the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), Confederation of the Ecuadorian Amazonian Indigenous Nationalities (CONFENIAE), and the United Workers Front (FUT) continue demonstrations against paquetazo.

Continue reading ““Paquetazo” in Ecuador – schools closed for demonstrations”

Text and photographs: Tuija Veintie

”Piatúa is a secret river. It has power that no other river has. If I am feeling bad, tired or stressed, I go to the Piatúa river and in the river I start feeling good again. The river cures me” says an upper secondary school student in Santa Clara, Ecuador. Our research group is currently conducting research activities in this region and our interviews with and photographs taken by upper secondary school students show the special role that river Piatúa carries for the students as a sacred river and an important place for recreation and social gatherings. For the students, their families and the small-scale farming the river is a necessary source of water. In addition, the river Piatúa brings income to the local people through tourism as the clean water and landscapes attract tourists interested in nature, recreation and water sports.

Clouds have been gathering over future of the crystal-clear waters of river Piatúa. The Piatúa hydroelectric power plant project, run by Genefran S.A., is located in Santa Clara, between the provinces of Napo and Pastaza. Local Kichwa organisation, PONAKICS (Pueblo originario Kichwa de Santa Clara), claims that the power plant project threatens the environment, livelihoods and culture of the Indigenous communities in the Santa Clara area. Furthermore, the power plant project violated the rights of the Santa Clara Kichwa people as the construction work initiated without prior consultation.

Continue reading “Resistance of Kichwa people of Santa Clara against Piatúa hydroelectric power plant”

by Victor Aurelio Llangari, teachers and parents of the Bilingual Intercultural Unit of San Jacinto

The practices of the peoples and nationalities of the Amazonia are of life. Therefore in 2017, an emphasis was placed on this knowledge in the Educational Institution of San Jacinto together with intercultural processes: First ritual ceremony for planting of Cedar and Guayacan trees in the memory of Dr. Thomas May, a biologist and a professor at the UEA, who came to the Amazonia with an International Cooperation project of German Cooperation Agency. Second ritual ceremony was organized to launch the San Jacinto ecological tourist trail sumakkuskakamay kawsaypacha chakiñan.

Continue reading “Experiences, celebration and ritual ceremony of wisdom and knowledge articulated by the Intercultural Bilingual Education System in the Province of Pastaza”