Building Solutions
We are supporting the struggles of indigenous families to ensure access to clean water and renewable energy.
“Going back generations and generations, women have always been the caretakers of the forest.”
Grandmother Aurora, Siona community of Seoquiya, Cuyabeno.
The Situation
In the Amazon, women are the caretakers of the forest and the family. The women, with a watchful eye towards the long-term proliferation of wild game, tell their husbands and sons what animals to hunt for and which animals to leave be. Yet, with their territories reduced or destroyed, indigenous women are increasingly put in situations that force them to choose between the short-term economic needs of their children and the long-term health of their forests and cultures.
The Vision
The Women’s Empowerment Program aims to support indigenous women and strengthen indigenous families through the formation of community-led enterprises and women’s associations that focus on income-generating socio-agricultural projects, as well as the recovery of plant medicines and traditional healing systems.
We are providing women across dozens of indigenous communities with the support they need to become leaders, advocates and entrepreneurs, creating sustainable economic alternatives for their families and communities, which allow women to free themselves from dependence on industrialization and regain control of their families, their forest and their own ways of protecting their health and life.
