Help the Shipibo Regenerate from the Pandemic

Dear donors and friends of the Shipibo People,

We hope this report from the field finds you well. We have received the latest updates from our friends at Asomashk and are happy to share these with you.

Your incredible support to this fundraising campaign for the Shipibo healers and their “Onanyabo in Action” initiative thus far has allowed Asomashk to send 10 intercultural health brigades to far away Shipibo communities and attend well over 5000 patients. Asomashk tells us that through these visits they managed to reach 98% of the Shipibo communities they had planned to visit, with very positive results, as we reported previously

Therefore, during the last few months, Asomashk was able to redirect its focus from community visits to a more concealed but central purpose of their initiative: to work on consolidating the unity of the Shipibo-Konibo indigenous people through the recovery, revaluation and strengthening of their unique cultural and medical tradition.

Every month since June, Asomashk organized a large two-day gathering, which included an ayahuasca ceremony, for representatives from different Shipibo organizations, including key political Shipibo leaders. The spiritual retreats, as Asomashk calls the gatherings, were held with the objective to generate a space for reflection on the use and practice of their ancestral medicine, their cultural knowledge, cosmovision, and spirituality in the current context. The gatherings aim for cultural empowerment and seek to harmonize or create a balance among Shipibo-Konibo leaders. It was gratifying to see that increasingly more Shipibo leaders and organization participated in the gatherings, and that the events, among others, “managed to resolve differences between the leaders of different indigenous organizations”.

The context in Peru over the last 50 years (and beyond) has been one of largely marginalizing indigenous peoples. In the mid-seventies, the state recognized indigenous communities or villages. However, Peru has yet to legally recognize indigenous peoples and grant them autonomy over the territories that they traditionally inhabit. This is in stark contrast to international law and the realities in other Amazonian countries. The context in Peru has led to fragmentation and the existence of a multitude of different political federations of the same ethnicity. The Shipibo-Konibo, one of Peru´s numerically largest Amazonian indigenous peoples - as well as other Peruvian indigenous peoples - are in a process of seeking political unity and the recognition as one people and their territory - the Shipibo Nation. Asomashk is playing an important part in this vital process, and your support to Asomashk is crucial. We are greatly thankful for your ongoing support.

On behalf of ASOMASHK

Chaikuni Institute & Temple of the Way of Light