Kaka Wera - Aldeia Arapoty

Background
The indigenous people of Brazil, a remainder of the once widespread Indio, or more accurately, Guarani, culture are meeting many challenges and dangers to their traditions and ways of living as modern industrialised culture encroaches on every sector of life. Traditional leaders and healers try their best to maintain the communities and pass on the rites and knowledge that have sustained them over the generations.

What is the project?
The project, run by a noted Shaman and traditional dancer, Kaka-Wera, consists in the construction of a community centre at Embu-guaçu, a town an hour away from Sao Paulo. Kaka Wera is setting up a place where people of the different tribes in this region can come to learn about the ancient culture, arts and philosophy in an in-depth process that unfolds the potential of each individual.

What is our task?
Our task is to re-build the community centre that burned down last year.
They will start building the walls before the arrival of the work camp participants so that we will construct the roof in the traditional Guarani manner: with bamboo and straw.
The material has to be prepared in stages for better resistance to fire and rain.

What to expect?
This project offers the possibility of getting to know the native traditions in wonderful natural surroundings, yet close to the city of Sao Paulo.
Kaka- Wera, who is leading the activities, is a very special chief, having a deep connection to the lands surrounding the tribe. Together with some of his friends from other tribes he will undertake to explain their traditions and rituals to the participants.
This work camp not only gives us the opportunity of building something using the traditional techniques but also of learning something at first hand about their culture.

About Kaka Wera

Here are a few links to sites describing Kaka Wera and his work:
http://www.suryoma.com/workshops/facilitators.html
Ka Ka Wera Jucupé is a therapist, Amazonian shamanic healer who works using the power of nature, healing plants and the lineal guiding spirits. As a 'pahi' he is a divulger of the ancestral sacred memory, their culture and values that aim at achieving wisdom and peace within. Ka Ka Wera is a writer and lecturer both in Brazil and abroad. He co-ordinates humanitarian and ecological campaigns through the Aropoty Institute (an organisation that preserves and informs about Indian culture and its sacred medicine). He is also a member of the recently founded World Council for the preservation of Cultural Diversity and Ancestral Traditions, presided by Swami Dayananda and by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

http://www.taradhatu.org/brazil2005_Kaka.html

http://www.arapoty.org/

3 weeks after Connectivity - 22 July - 12 August (Full)

Sponsors:

Partners: