Quotes that guided the project

“We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love... and then we return home” Australian Aboriginal Proverb

Some background information

I first came across the Yawanawá tribe by coincidence, noticing a newspaper article online about a young man calling himself Nixiwaka Yawanawá saying that he was representing his tribe and he came to London wishing to raise awareness of the plight of his tribe back in the Amazon of Brazil working for and with Survival International. This was sometime early 2014. 

The idea

The idea was for Nixiwaka to travel to the Yawanawá tribe and document some of the conversations he would have around a number of topics affecting the West and transposing those to the Yawanawá tribe itself. 

The Walpole Bay Hotel event

I decided that we needed to have a launch event to inform students and other interested parties, not least to have a record. 

Flooding and Funding

The trip became even more complicated 

The project, the blog, thanks and a note of caution

In the end and for reasons not possible to explain in this blog I had no opportunity to talk to anyone about the specific help needed, how help could be organized. 

The Yawanawá - Rio Branco, BR 364, Tarauacá, Ponte Sobre

The Yawanawá tribe people are one of many indigenous people of Brazil. They, that are a few hundred of Yawanawá people, live in small villages or settlements along the narrow Gregorio river. 

The Yawanawá villages

In order to reach the villages and settlements, 

Yawanawá - politics and enterprise

The Yawanawá tribe have now secured the rights to around 187,000 ha (there are different figures mentioned, and some talk of 198,000 ha) of land which makes up the so-called Rio Gregório Indigenous Territory. This is roughly just over half the size of the county of Kent in South East England.