Colombia: Indigenous Cultural Support

Colombia: Indigenous Cultural Support (Liaison)

Project name: Kogui Film Equipment (Completed)
Project number: CE003
Date: Sept 2014 (Completed)
Summary: A young Indigenous man from Colombia has been traveling the world speaking about the stewardship of the Earth. Sharing warnings of negative outcomes on Earth if people do not change their ways. As a liaison to the world, as well as within his indigenous community, he needed technology for him to fulfill his role. He will also be using the equipment to document and share with his own culture to use as a teaching tool.

How many people will this project support?
Having the ability to communicate with the world directly, the number of people this will support is unknown. In todays world, we recognize that the internet makes it possible to create great change or inspiration from every person. Within the indigenous community this will have an impact on strengthening and preserving the traditions for the youth.

The issue
Having access to equipment to communicate with the world, record and preserve culture that is reliable and accessible.

The solution 
Use of a computer to record information to share from village to village, and with the world, supports education of this ancient culture. The more people understand the knowledge of the indigenous, the more we can support them in maintaining their language, culture and way of life.

Potential long term impact:
With the outside world having more impact on remote indigenous villages and communities, having the ability to record the culture may be even more important than we realize. With the ability to record language, customs, traditional knowledge and ceremonies, recording it for the future potentially saves it from ever becoming extinct.

Volunteers: 
For this project we had two volunteers who worked as guides and as translators to deliver the equipment.

What we delivered: 
– Laptop computer
– Antivirus program
– Word program
– Hand held video camera
– Tripod
– Thumb drives
– SD cards for the camera

Update: 2015
We learned that the young man who we supplied the tech equipment to is supporting his father who is a Mamo (Traditional Spiritual Authority) from La Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. He has been working on films that are being used for private internal use for his community.

Recently, in 2014, there was a disaster in one of the villages from a lightening strike the killed 11 people. This young man was able to travel to the community and gather important information to share with the world on what the community needed. He also was able to collect critical information on the Village members to keep for the future of the community.

He continues his work as a liaison to the outside world and work within his home communities.