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. 



As I was searching for a speaker for the annual Creative Challenge awards event of the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), a programme which I had developed a few years ago, I decided to read a little more about this man and found an interviewed published by Survival International. He was supported by Survival International and worked for them in London since the summer of the previous year, initially as an intern. I thought it would be of interest to our students to hear about the situation of the indigenous people in the Amazon, their lives and challenges, including environmental challenges. Also it would complement the other speaker at event, the Canadian artist Cathy Busby, who had worked with First Nation people in Canada in the past. The Creative Challenge is an extra-curricular social and environmental entrepreneurship programme open to all UCA students and asks the students to reflect on that they believe to be of value, how to engage in exchange and how to make a positive different by developing proposals and ideas addressing issues they have identified or are concerned about.


As my interest was raised I decided to follow up the link with Survival International and after some reassurances to Survival that I was not looking for a polished public speaker but in the story and message, we agreed that Nixiwaka would not only talk at the Creative Challenge event but also to our wider student body at two of our UCA campuses. The talks were well received by students and the Creative Challenge supporters and thus Nixiwaka and I kept in touch. He subsequently explained to me how much he wanted to help his tribe and how much he liked my approach to challenging issues. Based on these conversations, which included the issue of contradictions in our modern society, which in itself made positive action a difficult task, something he pointed out did not exist in his tribe, and combined with his comment that the West made mistakes that affected his and other tribes deeply, I proposed an idea.





Creative Challenge awards event at the Kensington Roof Gardens, London in May 2014