Rainforest Partnership is supporting environmental education programming and youth empowerment initiatives in our partner community of Sani Isla. This work expands and strengthens educational resources and opportunities for young people, both in and beyond the community, and builds the foundation for a new generation in Sani Isla to lead long-term conservation of their lands, livelihoods, and culture.
Sani Isla, a Kichwa community in the provinces of Sucumbios and Orellana on the border of Yasuni National Park (one of the most biodiverse places in the world)
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.
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.
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.
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
Community leadership of Sani Isla
Mushuk Ñanpitak Pascachik Wanrakuna Youth Association
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