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Non Bai Shipibo Cultural Preservation Campaign

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Cultural Preservation Campaign - Shipibo Indigenous Community of Nuevo Ceilan


Introduction

About three hours north of Pucallpa, Peru, deep in the jungle and adjacent to the Ucayali river (a major tributary of the Amazon) is the Shipibo community of Nuevo Ceilan.

This large, family-based community is deeply and uniquely rooted in their traditional culture, performing the same traditions as their ancestors and regarding themselves as stewards and guardians of the rainforest with its wealth of medicinal plants. Over the years, Nuevo Ceilan has become a healing center and destination for those, locally and internationally, who seek medicinal help from the family and their sacred plants. Guests come for a range of medical reason—from treatment for infections and digestion problems to relief from depression and addiction—staying at the compound for as long as six months or more while they recuperate physically, mentally and spiritually.

As the healing traditions practiced at the center arise from and are entwined with the local indigenous natural resources, the families of Ceilan are founding an NGO called Non Bai (Our Path) to safeguard their ancestral land and preserve their medicinal plants in an ethno-botanical garden called Senen Biri .
Symbiosis

In the words of Alberto Sinti Reategui (President of Non Bai) :

“The language of the plants, the wisdom of our ancestors, stewards of our jungle habitat for centuries, passed from them to us and onto our children, our ceremonies, weavings, songs and stories that preserve our culture rooted in our knowledge of and caring for the plants.

Recognizing the suffering in the world, particularly among humans, we are reaching out to share knowledge of medicinal plants.

The Senen Biri Ethnobotanical Garden allows us to continue in our centuries-old role as caretakers of the plants, for all to benefit from the healing, research and wisdom available through understanding the interconnectivity of plants, people and their shared habitat.”


The Campaign

Total Funds Needed: $10,500 USD

The total budget of the proposed projects totals $10,500 USD. This money will enable the community to safeguard their ancestral culture in the following ways:

1) The development of an ethnobotanical garden to preserve their medicinal plants and transmit their traditional ecological knowledge to their youth.
2) The renovation of their cultural center to continue the practice of their ancient traditions.

3) The construction of a new water well and tank structure to ensure their access to clean and healthy water for current and future generations.

Water System

Funds Needed: $6,000 USD

Like many communities in the Amazon basin, Nuevo Ceilan is surrounded by multinational corporations (MNCs) that have engaged in unethical and oftentimes corrupt deals with Peruvian government officials to purchase land throughout the Amazon for logging, mining and other environmentally and culturally destructive business practices. As a direct result of these practices, the water resources near Nuevo Ceilan are tainted and not a viable source of clean and safe drinking water. The community has therefore relied for a number of years on a small well as a source of potable water for family and guests at the center.

However, their well and water reservoir and infrastructure has deteriorated and is in urgent need of renovation. A new and deeper well must be dug to access clean water and a storage tank must be constructed for the surplus water during the flooding season.

The budget of the proposed water system totals roughly $6,000 USD. This money will provide the community the means to build the water tank structure and deepen their water well, ensuring clean, healthy and accessible water for them and their future generations.

Ethnobotanical Garden

Funds Needed: 2,000 USD

The Senen Biri (Bringing each other together) project has an opportunity to collect and provide sanctuary for a selection of over 2,000 rare native medicinal plant species. However, there are not enough hands among community members to meet the demands of a project of this scale; therefore, they are appealing for outside resources to prepare the 26-hectare garden (approx. 65 acres). Funding would provide seedlings of rare plants and a modest wage to attract labor from neighboring communities.

Cultural Center

Funds Needed: $2,500 USD

Their Cultural Center, although open to the public, has been strictly known only by word of mouth, until now, in an effort to help maintain the sustainability of the indigenous plants that grow in the area. In addition to constructing the crucial new water system, the family needs to renovate the
center’s guest rooms to better accommodate visitors and ensure their comfort and safety while staying in the jungle.


Conclusion

Thank you for supporting Non Bai’s campaign to bring clean water to their families and community, and develop their cultural center and ethnobotanical garden. Your generous donations are assisting this Shipibo community to cultivate their medicinal plants, preserve and transmit their ancestral knowledge to future generations and safeguard their culture and the amazon rainforest for all of humanity.

By supporting this campaign you are helping to ensure the protection of cultural diversity and traditional indigenous knowledge. As a result, you are directly aiding the preservation of the Shipibo culture for future generations and humanity as a whole.
Unfortunately, as we are a small startup media company, we do not have the resources to offer perks for donations to this campaign. We apologize that we are unable to do so at this time, as we appreciate each and every one of you. We hope to be able to offer perks to you, our generous supporters, for your donations to future campaigns. However, as a thank you for your donation, the family would like to extend their heartfelt gratitude and offer you an open invitation to visit Neuvo Ceilan.
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Donations 

  • Anonymous
    • $100 (Offline)
    • 4 yrs
  • James Kessler
    • $54 (Offline)
    • 4 yrs
  • Samantha Serrano
    • $100 (Offline)
    • 4 yrs
  • Beverly Beckham
    • $400 (Offline)
    • 4 yrs
  • Tyson Fernandes
    • $130 (Offline)
    • 4 yrs
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Organizer

Monte Amador
Organizer
Kent, WA

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