{"id":11116,"date":"2025-01-14T22:54:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T22:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fondoonucol.sinergiapublicidad.co\/2025\/01\/14\/the-blossoming-of-the-embera-women-of-choco\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T20:27:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T20:27:07","slug":"the-blossoming-of-the-embera-women-of-choco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fondoonucol.org\/en\/2025\/01\/14\/the-blossoming-of-the-embera-women-of-choco\/","title":{"rendered":"The blossoming of the Embera women of Choc\u00f3"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Usy Caizamo is a young woman belonging to the Embera D\u00f3bida people (People of the river), coordinator of the dance and youth group of the Nepono Werara organization, which means \u201cflowering of women\u201d.<\/em> She began her leadership process 6 years ago \u201cI noticed that I had the ability to convene people especially young people, understanding that they really like to generate spaces for art, culture and dance, so, in 2018 thanks to the call of other young women, we were invited to dance in the IndiAfro festival of the Uniclaretiana\u201d<\/em>, in the framework of that space a group of young women who wanted to dance, strengthen their roots and their culture was born \u2018I have been living in Quibd\u00f3 for 28 years and very little I go to the community, then the mother tongue and dances were something very new to me\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Nepono Werara was born five years ago with the purpose of contributing to the rescue of the Embera culture, knowledge and part of their cosmogony \u201cwe are integrated by children, young people and adults between 9 and 30 years old and most of the young people come from territories such as Bojay\u00e1, Charco Gallo, Alto Baud\u00f3, Tad\u00f3, Nuqu\u00ed and the urban area of Quibd\u00f3\u201d <\/em>says Usy, highlighting that this diversity of origins potentiates the youth organization. Nepono Werara from its beginnings proposed to strengthen from dance and occupy training spaces being part of processes that lead indigenous and non-indigenous allied organizations such as Fedeorewa and Lunaria \u201cwe have been trained in communications, audiovisual production, women’s rights and the rights of indigenous peoples, We have had the opportunity to carry out exchanges in territories such as Torreid\u00f3 in Medio Baud\u00f3, Negu\u00e1 in Quibd\u00f3 and the Kat\u00edo community of Mond\u00f3 in Tad\u00f3\u201d<\/em>, significant experiences since the knowledge acquired is replicated in their territories, opening paths to the organization as a training school. Although Nepono Werara began its journey with the participation of women only, since 2023 they have opened the possibility of participation of young people from their diversity \u201cit was important to introduce them to our leadership process\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

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It was precisely in that year that Nepono Werara would connect with the Mae Kiwe Intercultural project through Cocco Kilele, a young writer, artist, Afro feminist and leader of the organization Semillas Negras \u201cshe calls me and tells me about a space, a youth house where we can train and carry out our activities, where mentoring spaces are promoted, healthy spaces, in which we could discuss issues such as decoloniality, popular feminisms, rights and the different approaches of the project, and it was in this way that we joined the process of Mae Kiwe\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

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For Usy, the project allows them to establish relationships and interact with organizations that also work in the territory \u201cit was very important to have a space where they made us feel that we belonged, here was a safe place that was for us and by us. It has also had an impact on the vision we had of non-indigenous collectives, since we were not close to other youth organizations and the new forms of leadership from art, rap, mental health and with children\u201d.<\/em> For young people like Usy it was significant to exchange and learn new strategies to enhance their work in the communities, but learning is always a two-way street and the members of Nepono Werara also contributed knowledge from their Embera cosmogony \u201cthey did not know about indigenous peoples, their traditions, uses and customs, so it was important to transform and close gaps around ignorance\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Bringing together youth collectives and organizations in safe spaces allows their members to get to know each other and establish relationships of trust as a basis for future collaborations, as well as to exchange knowledge and experiences, discuss issues and plan how to work as a team to improve the effectiveness of their work. Among the topics that were key for Usy and Nepono Werara, it is important to talk about diversities because \u201cin our homes and communities it is a topic that is not discussed publicly, and this is because we are unaware of these new ways of feeling identity, and this is why we are currently experiencing very cruel cases of youth suicide, we are not attending to mental health, diversities and the feelings of young people in our communities\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

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In the Great Seed House (name that young people from Quibd\u00f3 have given to the safe space) Nepono Werara developed an extremely significant activity in its organizational work, the photographic exhibition Dayi Drua \u201cwas one of the most important moments because it represented that they believed in what we had been doing, we had been touring territories for a year, and through the photographs, we invited to a tour around the Embera cosmogony and empowered the house as a safe space, we were very free to express ourselves and people came to learn\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n


Mae Kiwe Intercultural has provided a space, a platform, an environment in which young people from different backgrounds can converge. Usy believes that the project contributes to consolidating peace \u201cby promoting our ideas and empowering us, strengthening our organizations at the political and organizational level, providing us with tools to enhance the development of our activities in our territories”.<\/em><\/p>\n

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About the project<\/strong><\/p>\n


The project \u201cMae Kiwe Intercultural: Building Bridges and Fostering Intersectional Learning to Advance Safe and Meaningful Peacebuilding and Political Participation of Afro-descendant and Indigenous Young Women and Men in Colombia\u201d is funded by the United Nations Secretary General’s Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) and aims to forge and strengthen a protective social and political environment in which young people from Afro-descendant and indigenous communities, especially young women, participate and influence peace and decision-making processes alongside and in cooperation with local and regional government institutions, and are protected from the serious risks and violations associated with civic participation and advocacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Usy Caizamo is a young woman belonging to the Embera D\u00f3bida people (People of the river), coordinator of the dance and youth group of the Nepono Werara organization, which means \u201cflowering of women\u201d. She began her leadership process 6 years ago \u201cI noticed that I had the ability to convene people especially young people, understanding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,172],"tags":[181,183,175],"class_list":["post-11116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sin-categoria","category-stories-of-peace","tag-leadership","tag-pbf-en","tag-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondoonucol.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondoonucol.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondoonucol.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondoonucol.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondoonucol.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11116"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fondoonucol.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11238,"href":"https:\/\/fondoonucol.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11116\/revisions\/11238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondoonucol.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondoonucol.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondoonucol.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondoonucol.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}