The children of the Sinangoe community of the A’I Cofán Indigenous nation have won a major victory after living six years without infrastructure that would allow them to exercise their right to their own education.
On July 25, a historic court hearing was held in A’I Cofán territory as part of a lawsuit against the Ecuadorian state for its violation of the right to education. This right has been demanded by the community since March 2019 when part of the Río Cofanes School collapsed due to erosion by the Aguarico River, leaving 57 children without a dignified, appropriate and culturally relevant place to receive their classes.
In the absence of state action and with the aim of continuing to provide a space for their children’s education, the community decided to temporarily move classes to a communal field and warehouse. However, these spaces have never had the adequate conditions for children to attend and engage in lessons. On sunny days, A’I Cofán children must endure the heat caused by the roof tiles. On rainy days, they lose their homework due to water leaks.
As student Magaly Umenda recounts, “I’m in seventh grade and I’m in the school. The community lent us a field and a warehouse where we were all abandoned and it is difficult. It’s very hot and when it rains the road gets soaked and muddy. We go to school with wet shoes until noon and then on the field our notebooks and blackboards get wet. When it is windy the dust rises on the field. We’re constantly accompanied by dogs and chickens, it’s a very ugly area. The children are all crammed in the warehouse, as there are a lot of things in storage. My concern is that we as Indigenous people are seen as less than the Kukamas; if something like this happens to them they are surely given a school by the road in two months, or they will be given some classrooms to study in, but they don’t listen to us. That is why I feel sad. I ask for respect and that they listen to the children here in the community.”
In addition to a stolen education, there is also the violation of the right to self-determination, which establishes that Indigenous peoples have the right to strengthen their sense of belonging and ancestral traditions. The Sinangoe community is also demanding that the education provided to A’I Cofán children has an approach that takes into account the best interests of the child. As Francis Andrade, community defense lawyer and member of the Amazon Frontlines defense team explains, “it is not a violation of the right to any education, it is a right to their own community-led education and that is what we have tried to demonstrate in the hearing. An infrastructure without cultural relevance is insufficient and it becomes a dead building.”
At the hearing, the community presented representatives of the Ministry of Education and the Secretariat of Intercultural Bilingual Education with facts, symbolic representations and arguments emphasizing the importance of establishing learning environments that rescue their worldview. After the hearing, the judge of Lumbaqui accepted the action for protection of Sinangoe’s right to their own community-led education and ruled that the State must present within 60 days a timetable for the construction of a learning environment and make a public apology.
