Intercambio No.4

INDIGENOUS EDUCATION

SPECIAL ISSUE ON INDIGENOUS EDUCATION

INTRODUCTION

Within the Initiative for Democratic Education in the Americas (IDEA) there are several structures with different foci, but which share common goals. One of them is the Continental Network of Indigenous Educators (REI), a hemispheric alliance of teachers, students and community organizations that struggle for a public education that responds to the cultural needs, worldview and aspirations of the aboriginal peoples.

From November 9th to 12th of 2012, the REI facilitated the Third Continental Encounter of Indigenous Educators in Tikal, classic city of the Mayan people located in the jungles of Guatemala’s El Peten province. The Encounter allowed discussion on indigenous pedagogies in various countries of the Americas. Indigenous brothers and sisters from Canada, United States, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Surinam, Puerto Rico and Guatemala presented, discussed and planned future actions to activate community thinking and weave ancestral knowledge in paradigms for an education with balance, harmony and consensus. A new council of carriers, or coordinators, of the Indigenous Educators Network, was also elected at the event. They are Christine Stewart, Nisga’a from Canada, Julian Jiménez Ramírez, Mixtec, from México, Jean Nilton Campo from Colombia and Guillermo Chen, Achi Maya from Guatemala.

In this special edition of Intercambio, you will find articles based on the proposals shared at the Third Continental Encounter by indigenous educators and students representing teachers unions, community organizations and NGO´s, from Canada to Argentina.

Year 5, No.4, October 2013