ASCAK

The Kuntamanã Socio Cultural and Environmental Association was founded in 2011 with the aim of representing the demands of the Kuntanawa Indigenous People and promoting environmental sustainability, always associated with the cultural strengthening of the Kuntanawa Indigenous People. It also seeks to strengthen culture and improve the cultural and institutional ties of the Pano-speaking Peoples and to support the socio-environmental sustainability of these and other peoples and riverside communities with whom these Indigenous Peoples live.

 

With this line of thought, ASCAK already has a robust curriculum of experiences in:

 

• Conducted reforestation efforts – ASCAK has already carried out, over a decade, several joint efforts in the Tejo River basin, in which thousands of new trees and agroforestry systems aimed at providing food security for the region's inhabitants were planted.

• Promoted Cultural Festivals that brought together hundreds of Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants, aimed at the cultural strengthening of the Pano Peoples and the alliances between Indigenous and riverside dwellers who live together.

• It held the first event of its kind, I Tree Cup Games, a major sporting and cultural event with debates on the environmental agenda of forest peoples (2014)

• ASCAK is responsible for the creation and management of the Cultural Center and Traditional Health Center in the Kuntamanã village, among other actions.

 

Conceived in 2019, the Transform and Illuminate project begins a new phase of ASCAK's activities, in a tone of alert and emergency. Through a call to the world, Haru Kuntanawa conceived the Transform and Illuminate project with two main goals:

 

• I - to train Sustainability Guardians to work in communities involved in continuous actions to protect the forest, making them protagonists in the safety and protection of natural resources , acting in the prevention of fires and floods and;

• II - promoting the mass planting of millions of seedlings in the upper Juruá River basin where the Tejo River and its tributaries are located, expanding the initiative also to the Jordão River area (Huni Kuin people ), among other areas already in the first years of activity.