THE COMMUNITY SCHOOL
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Morning classes at The Shamanic & Ecological Association Jungle School |
One of the projects of the community that has been developed over the last years has been a school project with the aim of providing an education that takes in Ecology, Indigenous tradition and natural medicine in addition to reading writing and arithmetic. The young students are also encouraged to develop their skills in arts, crafts and languages.
One of the founders of the school gave us the following statement:
"The formal education provided by the Colombian state is a unifying one that is adjusted to global models that do not consider the specific requirements or problems encountered by different zones.
The cultural tradition and the social and ecological conflicts of this region, have led us to the conviction that this population requires a particular education that considers the native cultural aspects and the traditions of the indigenous people that inhabit this zone, with the aim of preserving its customs, values and identity.
We would like to teach the real history of our Latin American people, not the history that is accomodated to the bourgoise or capitalist interests. We would like the children of today to be aware of the year of subjugation that our people have been subjected to and to defend the values, that as people of an ancient tradition, we have and should preserve faced with the overwhelming influence of consumerism.
In the same way we would like them to be conscious of the necessity of emancipation from the social economic influence of foreign powers that undervalue the capacity of our people due to their superior technology, relegating the human factor to second place. We mean to design options of progress that transcend the double human conflict - nature and man - to transform society in the way that corresponds to us as latin americans with our rich native traditions.
So, the present project resides within a defined context with clear objectives: to implement an integral education that promotes and defends the values of the communities concerned,as an option of peace and progress indicating that the best revolution that we can make as Latin Americans, is the ideological fight."
We are currently working to produce a more comprehensive outline of the school project in the hope of receiving funding to expand its potential and make it available to more children as there are many local people who would like their children to be educated in areas that the governmental system currently ignores.
The school was built entirely at the expense of the community itself and several teachers offer their services without pay. Due to this the time they can offer is limited as they also need to grow crops and attend to other matters. The community wishes to be able to offer more hours of schooling each day and to have a few more facilities such as books, writing implements and so on.
The children of the community are actively engaged in the general day to day activities of the commuinity and also receive practical orientation in realtion to growing crops, natural medicine, cooking, construction and much more.
If you would like further information about this project or are interested in supporting it please contact us.