Support Indigenous Medicinal Gardens in the Amazon

Farmacia Viva Indigena is a project led by the committee of Paoyhan, a Shipibo-Konibo community in the Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon. This project responds to the fundamental needs of the community to reconnect with their ancestral knowledge of medicinal plants and to have access to affordable medicine. Further, this project will help to boost the socio-economic development of the community. Alianza Arkana will act as a bridge to facilitate the administrative and financial development of the project until it is fully self-sufficient.

Each month since the launching of this project, we have been travelling to Paoyhan to support the committee of Paoyhan in the launching of the Farmacia Viva Indigena project. We are pleased with the results of the most recent visit (on November 3rd), as we see significant improvements in our working relationship with the committee as well as in the advancement of the project.

One of the significant achievements of this trip is that we were able to progress with the delimitation of the territory and the creation of pathways within the botanical garden. This allowed us to continue with the inventorying and registration of medicinal plants. Our progress exceeded our expectations as we were able to inventory and register over 250 plants in 50% of the demarcated territory. We are convinced that we will find even more plants within the territory during the re-exploration phase. Most of these plants have a story and myth - these will be compiled by the committee and conveyed to the children of the community and the visitors of the botanical garden.

Further, we organised workshops to identify the challenges faced by the committee in the early implementation of the project, in order to then transform these into strengths. This workshop also helped us to address and overcome the weaknesses in the working relationship between the committee and Alianza Arkana. 

The seeds have been planted and we rest assured that, with the collaboration of this wonderful intercultural team, the project will rapidly be brought to fruition. We look forward to our next working session with the committee in December. Irake!

~ 19 November 2018