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Juan Carlos Palomino, Director of the Amazon Refuge Wildlife Conservation Center, meets with the leaders of the San Juan de Yanayacu Indian Community. With Juan Carlos giving English translation of the conversation.
The home of the San Juan de Yanayacu Indians is on the Yanayacu de Yacapana River, a tributary of The Peruvian Amazon River. The community of 200-Indians, 125 of which are children, help protect their rainforest home, one of the most biologically diverse places on earth with more species of mammal than any other place on Earth. Immediate needs of the community include a clean drinking water supply, a small medical clinic, and a school for the young children. |
With the cooperation and support of the San Juan de Yanayacu Indians part of their land was granted to Amazon Refuge for the construction of a research and conservation center.
Amazon Refuge Wildlife Conservation Center offers opportunities for community service as part of our charitable outreach. Our volunteers have come away with personal growth and the reward of contributing meaningful work in this remote wilderness and foreign culture - enriching their lives for the better.
The mission of the Amazon Refuge includes providing employment for the San Juan de Yanayacu Indians so they may live productive and sustainable lives, in harmony with nature. And to allow volunteers to assist us on projects for the betterment of the Indians' lives.
You will not be invading or disrupting their culture but helping to preserve it. Our projects offer you an opportunity to experience the Amazon jungle as it is, but more importantly to give something back to a community.
Our diverse selection of service projects includes everything from low-skill labor to high skill medical or dental care. Community service projects can range from a few days to a week, to several weeks in length. Part of a regular tourist program can include community service or one's entire trip can be devoted to a service project.
This is your opportunity to visit a pristine Amazon rainforest. To leave behind preconceived notions of Amazon Indians and to immerse yourself in a culture that belongs to the forest. You can explore one of the most biologically diverse places on our planet.
Teach and be taught. Challenge your mind and body. Let your Spirit become your guide.
• Recruitment.
Help disseminate information and establish Facebook and community web pages for the Amazon Refuge Volunteer Program. Helping us with advertising and recruiting volunteers. Print out flyers and put them up around your university campus.
• Medical Clinic.
Groups, individuals, or organizations willing to donate or raise money through fundraising events for the construction of a medical clinic that will be used as well as a school building. Currently the Indians have neither medical nor first aid supplies nor even simple over-the-counter medicines.
• Friends of the Yanayacu:
Help us establish a nonprofit USA organization so that we can accept donations that support the Mission of the Refuge.
• Visit Us!
Bring your family and friends to see for yourselves the Amazon rainforest and meet the San Juan de Yanayacu Indians.
Gather a group from your fraternal, social, or professional societies. We have comfortable accommodations for up to 26-people.
Bring your students for an educational experience of a lifetime. We have hosted university groups (references available).
• Organic Garden Sustainable Food Project.
The primary agenda of the project is to assist the Indians to become more self reliant through the design and development of productive and sustainable gardens. Volunteers with horticulture knowledge or their own Green Thumb are needed to help grow fruits, vegetables, flowers, and even ornamental plants.
• Language Workshops Teaching English.
English is an international language of commerce and business and even children in remote native communities have a keen desire to learn some English. In the cities of Peru it is required for all students to take English, but this requirement is lacking in the simpler education offered to rural communities. We need volunteers with a knowledge of Spanish and an interest and ability to teach English to offer workshops lasting a week or more. Workshops can be offered in the afternoon, complimenting a regular tourism program in morning and evenings.
• Community Low-Skill Construction.
There are several short term community construction projects that are perfect for school groups looking to add community service as part of their tourism program. Wood and other material is bought and prepared in Iquitos city and volunteers sand the pieces, assemble them, and paint them. Construction projects can include trash and recycling bins, school desks and chairs, library shelves, etc.
• Cameras for Indians.
Volunteers who can bring with them simple digital cameras to then give to the Indians, and teach the use of the camera. With that the Indians can photo-document their daily lives, their ceremonies and special occasions. Such photos will then be sorted as an exhibition on a special web page. Document the San Juan de Yanayacu culture and tradition. Catalog and archive the San Juan de Yanayacu environment to promote indigenous stewardship for active participation and decision making in the conservation of their lands. Develop the medium of photography as an educational and advocacy tool.
• Botanic Garden.
Botanic Garden is a pioneering project that supports the rainforest plants that the Indians use in their every day lives.
This project objectives are to keep the Indians' use and practices with plants alive, to record medicinal plant knowledge. Volunteers and interns are needed with skills in biodiversity surveys, digital archives, geographical information systems, botany, wildlife biodiversity and tropical rainforest conservation.
• Health Services.
Medical internships are available for volunteers wishing to stay a minimum of two weeks. Short-term medical workshops or clinics, including dental extraction clinics are also available for volunteers with proper medical qualifications.
Recognizing the importance of this contribution, fees for days involved in health services only involve nominal costs of food, lodging, boat transfers and native assistant/translator. Shorter volunteer visits can be arranged for those wishing to teach hygiene, prenatal care, nutrition and other topics.
• Wildlife Census.
The development of conservation strategy depends upon knowledge of species populations. Such data collection will help determine species density and abundance of key species, such as jaguar, puma, and primates.
Service volunteers are quickly schooled in distance sampling technique and wildlife identification and then walk transect trails in Amazon forest to record observations of wildlife. In the evening the volunteer adds the data collected from personal observation to our computerized data base.
At the conclusion of the service term the biologist will discuss the relevance of the data collected.
Special programs on our wish-list:
Motion activated night vision cameras which record the presence of animals active at night, such as jaguar.
• Art and Music Workshops.
Art and music are not subjects which are taught by teachers in the jungle communities. Volunteers who have a background in art can host workshops for the interested students. Emphasis can be on teaching crafts using local materials to then allow the Indians to sell unique hand-made souvenirs. A guide/translator is provided. Service volunteers may bring their supplies or we can buy in Iquitos city for a nominal fee.
• Clean Water Project.
Professionals with knowledge of water filtration systems and willing to bring any needed equipment.
• Bee Keeping for honey.
• Domestic Animals.
Volunteer team to work with the stray dogs in the village- a spay/neuter clinic, vaccinations, flea/mange treatment.
• Research: Get out of the classroom and into the Amazon. Our lodge manager, Juan Carlos, has a biology degree, an Honorary Cornell Degree, and extensive knowledge of the Amazon flora and fauna.
• Photography Culture, wildlife, the Southern Stars. You name it and the Amazon has it. Let your creativity go, find the Spirit in your work that only the jungle awakens.
Every person should have the opportunity to experience the Amazon rainforest.
Contact me and we can do it:
1-305-215-6182