Youth Empowerment and Environmental Education

To support our partners in Sani Isla at the beginning of the pandemic, Rainforest Partnership began to work with the community’s two schools, one on either side of the wide and fast-moving Napo River. 

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Led by Project Coordinator Geovanny Siquiha, himself a member of the Kichwa community and a lifelong advocate for educational opportunities for young people in the Amazon, we have continued supporting Sani Isla’s environmental education capacities by expanding access to key resources and technologies like internet access, projectors, and books for the community’s first library, and through the establishment of Sani Isla’s new Youth Association: Mushuk Ñanpitak Pascachik Wanrakuna.

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This unique and exciting youth project brings together young people from Sani Isla to participate in leadership and skills training and other opportunities to learn and travel and to create their own conservation and empowerment projects, like building a youth-led community garden and creating their own agroforestry project to sell various rainforest products to become self-sustaining.

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Supporting opportunities for young people to learn, grow, explore, and take leadership roles in their communities is a key strategy to ensuring long-term sustainability and conservation of the large area of land owned and protected by Sani Isla. 

Teachers, students, and directors at two schools in Sani Isla, Silverio Tapuy and Lorenzo de Garaicoa

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Community leadership of Sani Isla

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‍Mushuk Ñanpitak Pascachik Wanrakuna Youth Association

Capacity building and training for young people

• Organizing education and knowledge-exchange activities for young people in Sani Isla on topics from community ecotourism to conservation, biodiversity, and leadership, as well as expanding opportunities for them to travel outside of the community

Mushuk Ñanpitak Pascachik Wanrakuna Youth Association

• Establishing the community’s first Youth Association for young people to develop skills and access more opportunities to learn and travel; empowering youth to better support the community’s conservation and development projects for long-term resilience and thriving in Sani Isla

Educational resources in Sani Isla

• Supporting the building of the community's first library; securing other key resources like internet access, laptops, projectors, and books for the community’s two schools