The ‘Chankuap’ Foundation was born in 1996 and was created in the community of Wasakentsa, by the Salesians and lay volunteers committed with the native population. This Institution, which has now turned 20, commenced with the aim of utilizing some products of the forest and of cultivating native vegetable kinds with sustainable activities for the environment.
Fr. Domingo Bottasso, one of the founders, stated: “We were looking for an alternative to help overcome the economic difficulties of the families living in the forest, and we decided that the most convenient thing to do was a foundation”.
The work done by the Foundation allows Amazonian families to be inserted into a global economic market and to improve the income without abandoning the cultural and environmental context. About 600 families, in 60 communities of the Amazonian region, provide the raw matter for the necessary processing of products. The products that are used are: peanuts, cocoa, ginger, curcuma, “hierba luisa”,”achiote”, “ishpink”, “sangre de drago” (dragon blood), “ungurahua” and “guayusa”.
The Foundation has some areas of production and of natural resources, in which it accompanies and works with about 60 shuar and achuar communities and with mixed race farmers. The raw material is first treated and is thus given an added value to obtain quality products for trade.
In the field of education, at the “Padre Silvio Broseghini” Home, there are over 200 children, who successfully integrated in formal schools since 2001.
“There are difficulties – writs Fr. Silvio Broseghini – but they can be overcome if we all feel corresponsible of this utopia: the elimination of poverty, and the hope of a life worthy of human beings”.
