At Soltara Healing Center, we work exclusively with healers from the Peruvian Shipibo medicine tradition. But with the ever-increasing reach of mass media and globalization, and more and more Shipibo youth moving away from their hometowns to find work in Westernized spaces, the preservation of Shipibo practices, knowledge, and culture is at risk.
Faced with this situation and concerned about the restoration and appreciation of Shipibo culture, the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Isa Weni was founded under the following lines of action: art, culture, traditional medicine, ecology, and environment.
Maestras Karina Garcia Rios & Mary Juliana Vasquez Rios, two healers we are blessed to work with at Soltara, are involved with this organization when they are not holding ceremonies at Soltara. Their work is primarily based in the Yarinacocha district near Pucallpa, Peru.
Maestra Karina Garcia Rios
Maestra Mary Julliana Vasquez Rios
However, Isa Weni is requesting additional financial support to construct, supply, and staff an intercultural teaching center building, where this education will take place more formally: the Isa Weni Amazonian School.
All Shipibo children and young people will be accepted at the school, as well as national and foreign people who are interested in learning and connecting more deeply with the Shipibo culture. This center will provide education on traditional Shipibo culture and curandisimo (healing) for Indigenous children and young people to remember their ancestral roots. Through this, they aim to ensure its preservation and transmission to the next generation.
