Promotion of ancestral culture: 4th Regional Assembly of the Children of Mother Earth
As part of the International Program Children of Mother Earth, the Global Embassy of Activists for Peace (GEAP) held a series of regional meetings with the indigenous peoples of Mexico during the months of August and September in Chihuahua, Mexico.
The 4th Regional Assembly of the Children of Mother Earth was held in the Sierra Madre Occidental, bringing together over 1,000 members of the Tarahumara Ethnicity, also called the Rarámuris; Furthermore, 80 governors or siriames attended, who assumed the role of supreme advisers in the communities that they inhabit.
Also, Andrés Elizondo, leader of the Kikapu Tribe; Jesús Escárcega, secretary of the municipal president, Ernesto Estrada; José Suaripa, first governor of San Ignacio Arareko; Eleazar Zamarrón, Ejidal commissioner of the Community of Chodita; and Jesús Amaya, President of the Creel division, Chihuahua.
The GEAP’s national coordinator, Francisco Guerra, opened the event, thanking the Tarahumaras, on behalf of the GEAP’s executive president, William Soto Santiago. He stated:
"The main reason why we have these meetings and especially the work tables, is so that you, from your heart, your mind, can share your ancestral knowledge; because as Dr. William Soto Santiago has said, those who have really known how to care for and preserve our Mother Earth, have been the indigenous peoples."
"It must be made clear that in our duty and obligation to protect and care for Mother Earth, the Government plays an important role; But another important role is that which each one of us has: we have to do something for it; And in that sense, a strategic action is for preschool children to know what the proposals are or the actions that need to be developed in life, "said Armendariz.
"The Embassy can help us a lot, so can all of you, because you are the ones who are living here, you are living the in the problem and you can have the answer to many of the problems, and we can all participate. I hope that we all leave here as individual ambassadors, that we all become ambassadors, because I am sure that our hearts are set so that we may improve our nature, "he added.
One of the lines of action of the Children of Mother Earth Program is the study of the systematization and socialization of the proposals of the indigenous peoples, for the restoration of planet Earth.
For this reason, eight working tables were installed, where the Tarahumara governors, in the company of translators from Tarahumara to Spanish, developed the proposals.
- Conservation and restoration of water sources.
- Conservation and restoration of Mother Earth.
- Counteracting the effects of climate change.
- Conservation and restoration of biodiversity.
- The rescue and dissemination of the ancestral cultural and musical values of our peoples.
- Insight of the women of our indigenous peoples.
- Achieving peace and integral happiness for the Children of Mother Earth.
- Restoration of the indigenous food of the native peoples.
With the proposals made by the participants, the final conclusions were elaborated, which will be integrated into a document that will be presented to GEAP's executive president, William Soto Santiago.
The regional meeting culminated in dances and songs intoned by members of the indigenous peoples.
