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Venezuela's first indigenous university is preparing to be incorporated into the national higher education system later this year, a move that will bringing extra funding for protecting the country's endangered cultures.
With a 100-strong student body from various tribes, the school has been named the Barefoot University, because most students arrive after wandering shoeless through savannah, watching out for boa constrictors as they go.
The campus spans grassland to thick jungle and a sign at the door asks students to clean their feet before entering to huts to take classes that cover ancient customs and myths, alongside modern law and technology.
Najiru, a 23-year-old from the Warao tribe who is currently writing a forest-farming thesis, said he had more faith in the university than in traditional aid programs that rarely give indigenous people what they need.
"(Improving) the quality of life in the indigenous towns is not from bringing us outboard motors or a toilet or material goods. For us, that is not quality of life. Quality of life is having a small sown field, a boat, a machete and tools for work. With this, we are happy. So the non-indigenous people, without understanding our culture, our situation, offer us things that do not serve us at all," said Najiru.
President Hugo Chavez has placed Venezuela's Indian identity at the heart of his home-spun revolution. Many are grateful, but others say aid projects split villages and draw people into cash economies dominated by non-Indians.
Emajyumi Torres, from the Ye´kuana tribe, is one of the school's first graduates and now a teacher. She, with the help of other students and teachers, is racing to put into writing the wisdom of elders that is not being handed down orally as in previous generations.
"The reason for having and writing knowledge is because almost all indigenous people, the ancient people who are a living library, are getting older and the university is fighting to collect all the history, myths, stories, technology and education," said Torres.
Jose Korta, a 81-year-old Jesuit priest, was among those who founded the university several years ago.
"That it is an indigenous university, that is fundamental and that at this indigenous university they recognise the context of the surrounding society, which is not easy," said Korta.
Indigenous people who attend regular schools in Venezuelan towns often sever ties with their rural homelands, but these students need no city clothes for class. They sleep in hammocks and cook on open fires.
It is hoped the university will help indigenous communities create leaders who can defend land rights and prevent a headlong rush into modernity destroying thousands of years of knowledge about forest and river life.
Meanwhile, a balance between old and new, the government and the people, remains hard to strike.
With a 100-strong student body from various tribes, the school has been named the Barefoot University, because most students arrive after wandering shoeless through savannah, watching out for boa constrictors as they go.
The campus spans grassland to thick jungle and a sign at the door asks students to clean their feet before entering to huts to take classes that cover ancient customs and myths, alongside modern law and technology.
Najiru, a 23-year-old from the Warao tribe who is currently writing a forest-farming thesis, said he had more faith in the university than in traditional aid programs that rarely give indigenous people what they need.
"(Improving) the quality of life in the indigenous towns is not from bringing us outboard motors or a toilet or material goods. For us, that is not quality of life. Quality of life is having a small sown field, a boat, a machete and tools for work. With this, we are happy. So the non-indigenous people, without understanding our culture, our situation, offer us things that do not serve us at all," said Najiru.
President Hugo Chavez has placed Venezuela's Indian identity at the heart of his home-spun revolution. Many are grateful, but others say aid projects split villages and draw people into cash economies dominated by non-Indians.
Emajyumi Torres, from the Ye´kuana tribe, is one of the school's first graduates and now a teacher. She, with the help of other students and teachers, is racing to put into writing the wisdom of elders that is not being handed down orally as in previous generations.
"The reason for having and writing knowledge is because almost all indigenous people, the ancient people who are a living library, are getting older and the university is fighting to collect all the history, myths, stories, technology and education," said Torres.
Jose Korta, a 81-year-old Jesuit priest, was among those who founded the university several years ago.
"That it is an indigenous university, that is fundamental and that at this indigenous university they recognise the context of the surrounding society, which is not easy," said Korta.
Indigenous people who attend regular schools in Venezuelan towns often sever ties with their rural homelands, but these students need no city clothes for class. They sleep in hammocks and cook on open fires.
It is hoped the university will help indigenous communities create leaders who can defend land rights and prevent a headlong rush into modernity destroying thousands of years of knowledge about forest and river life.
Meanwhile, a balance between old and new, the government and the people, remains hard to strike.
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