Editor’s Note: As Vice President of Programs, Liliana assists ACT’s in-country colleagues. As part of that role, she helps cultivate women’s programs that build esteem and advance human rights among women across Amazonia. In this post, Liliana describes her experience at a recent women’s gathering organized by the Union of Women Healers (ASOMI) of the eastern Andean Amazon.
My trips to Colombia are generally very short, never enough time to really visit projects, sit for unscheduled chats over “tintos” (small cups of freshly brewed Colombian coffee), that can go several hours. This summer, determined to share a bit of my work with my daughter Annie, and our friends Stephanie and Hannah Dodson, we set out to the Valle de Sibundoy – a lovely highland region where ACT has projects. We focused on the work of ASOMI – a group of indigenous women – all either shamans, healers or simply really wise old ladies, who are struggling to strengthen their families, communities, and traditional medicine. A small component includes their “chagras” – small gardens where they grow their medicine and nourishment. Nothing is more important to them since they derive so much for their overall physical, emotional, and spiritual health. ACT’s support helps them with the very basics so they can continue to keep that which means so much. I don’t think there is a need for a translation of mama Carmencita explaining why the chagra is so important – is her joy contagious or what?
- Liliana Madrigal
Amazon Conservation Team
VP of Programs
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