CWS - In Gran Chaco, indigenous youth tracking their peoples' futures

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

> For Immediate Release

> August 14, 2010

Editors:  Photo to accompany story can be downloaded at
http://www.churchworldservice.org/media/

In Gran Chaco, indigenous youth tracking their peoples' futures

In the remote Bolivian Gran Chaco countryside, a Guaran teenager and
an old man walk side by side through the dry brush, looking at the
ground and the horizon.  The is boy taking notes to reconcile with a
global positioning system (GPS) mapping project he has in progress.

The teen is one of tomorrow's generation of indigenous leaders in the
vast Gran Chaco region of South America, spanning parts of Bolivia,
Argentina and Paraguay. He and other indigenous youth are now mapping
out the future for their people and delineating their past, in part by
using GPS technology to document their peoplesâ?? legal cases to
reclaim their ancestral lands.

Armed with their high-tech skills, the Chaco youth have still had to
call on their elders to visit the lands with them and show them
historical points to be mapped, bringing the two generations closer.

But GPS training is just the technology tip of a broader youth
education initiative supported by humanitarian agency Church World
Service in the Gran Chaco. Young men and women from Guaran, Qom and
other indigenous groups are gaining higher education opportunities,
training in community development, and accessing technology rarely
available to the region's marginalized groups.

In Argentina, 18 indigenous teenagers have already become leaders in
their communities after training in how to analyze community problems
and develop projects to solve them.

"We're nurturing leaders," said Martha Farmelo, CWS communications
officer based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Farmelo recently led a group
of supporters from the United States who met with indigenous students
in the Argentine Chaco.

"The indigenous communities of the Gran Chaco are depending on the new
generation to protect their survival as a people, and to help continue
struggles like cases to reclaim their ancestral lands that take a long
time to realize," Farmelo said.

"As part of our long-term Chaco initiative, an increasing number of
young men and women are now completing high school, and many are going
on to universities and vocational institutes--in some cases for the
first time in the history of their communities."

> "I have to help"

As one indigenous Paraguayan student told a group of North American
supporters,"We study for our indigenous community.  Math is intimately
linked to rights.  Even when you read the law you have to understand
the numbers in order to use that legal right.  My diploma will belong
to my community.  I have to work to give it back to my community.  I
have to help."

Church World Service partner organizations in the Chaco initiative are
helping provide and find other sources for scholarships and are
securing safe housing arrangements for indigenous students, as they
leave the familiarity of home for further education.

In Paraguay, ten indigenous young people received the opportunity to
attend university, through six scholarships from a bi-national company
and four from the Embassy of Venezuela to study in that country. In
Argentina, one student graduated as a geography professor, another
recently graduated as a lawyer and another as an economics professor.

Two indigenous graduates of a law school in Bolivia now work for the
Office of Indigenous Affairs of the Municipality of Villa Montes.

One group of Qom youth in Argentina says completing their education
has raised their self-esteem and strengthened their cultural
identity--and they're returning home, with training in nursing, law,
and bilingual and primary education.

Students in Castelli, Argentina, told a recent group of New England
visitors why they're learning. "Today, we haven't quite arrived.  Our
communities are not OK.  By studying, we hope to obtain what we want
and the well being of all."

"Through education we can know what our culture is and not lose our
dialects," said another. "We'll be able to manage in both languages.
Other peoples have lost their language.  Only in the Chaco have
communities held on to Qom, Wichi, Mocovi (languages)."

"In indigenous communities where unemployment, alcoholism and suicide
rates among youth are especially high, initiatives like the Chaco
program are not only giving young people encouragement, they're giving
entire communities hope for the future," said CWS's Farmelo.

On the technology side, Church World Service's Chaco program, launched
in 2005, began providing GPS training for indigenous adults and youth
to shore up land claims with detailed documentation. Teenagers are
using GPS to refine maps of indigenous territories, marking land
boundaries and indicating sites such as burial grounds.

In Argentina, since the program began, 18,939 hectares have been
digitally mapped in that country, which assists in land claims.
Twenty-five Argentine youth are also now trained to use tools and
instruments for the planning and management of the indigenous territories.

One youth who trained in GPS and other informational technology was
contracted by the government of the Chaco Province in Argentina to
accompany an official in all of the indigenous communities he covered
while evaluating possible irregularities in land allocations that may
have slighted indigenous communities.

Last year the Argentine government signed an agreement to provide a
donation of 140,000 pesos (about US$37,000) to support the process for
the indigenous Guaraní community of Vinalito to take possession of
land they had been granted collective title to in 2008. Work is
underway to secure potable water, basic housing and other services,
and several families have already moved onto the lands.

Ten more young Bolivians also learned GPS last year, so they can
participate in their peoples' demands for land access and defense of
the territories' natural resources.

In 2009 the Bolivian government took necessary steps to prepare the
transfer of title for 10,000 hectares to local indigenous communities.
Indigenous legal advocates participated by monitoring the government's
work and ensuring that it was carried out successfully. The Ministry
of Land signed an agreement dedicating the necessary resources for
carrying out similar work in additional lands marked for these communities.

In Paraguay, indigenous groups received two favorable rulings on their
right to their ancestral lands from the Inter-American Court of Human
Rights. However, the government has yet to comply, meaning two decades
of advocacy must still continue.

Across Chaco's tri-national expanse, the Church World Service
supported indigenous youth initiative is being supported and
implemented through a collaboration between CWS, strong local partner
organizations like CER-DET, CIPAE, ENDEPA, FUNDAZ and JUM,* and with
funding from the public sector and secular and faith-based sources
such as the Presbyterian Hunger Program and UMCOR.

* See http://www.cwslac.org/partners.php?lang=2&pais=0&ej=3

CER-DET: Center for Regional Studies of Tarija
CIPAE: Committee of Churches for Emergency Assistance
ENDEPA: Pastoral Team for Ministry with Indigenous Peoples
FUNDAPAZ: Foundation for Development in Justice and Peace
JUM: United Board of Missions Ecumenical Group

Media Contact:

Lesley Crosson, 212-870-2676, media@churchworldservice.org
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526, jdragin@gis.net

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