Newsletter N. 847

 

• Eviction order of Guarani village contested by federal prosecutor


• Regional conferences on indigenous education started in São Gabriel da Cachoeira (AM)

 

 

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Eviction order of Guarani village contested by federal prosecutor

 

The order of a regional judge to evict forty Guarani families from the Ñanderu Laranjeira area is contested by the Federal Prosecutor and the General Union Lawyers Office.  The Guarani reoccupied the land in the municipality of Rio Brilhante, Mato Groso do Sul, claiming it as their traditional territory.

 

Last week, December 18, both parties handed over their request to suspend the eviction order pending the final decision over the ownership claim of the Guarani community. The Federal Police already announced that they will not start the eviction before the 5th of January 2009.

 

Roadside

The Guarani hope that the court will handle the claim rapidly to avoid the eviction. “If we leave from here, we will have to live on the roadside where our children can be hit by passing cars”, commented a worried chieftain Faride Mariano de Lima.

 

Forest

In the beginning of January a group of the community will travel to São Paulo to try and get a meeting with the responsible judge. One of them is the mother of chief Faride, who is 83 years old. She will testify that she has lived in the area until 1960 when her community was chased away of the land. “I was born here. It’s our land. We don’t have anywhere to go. We’re living in the forest, quietly, fishing, hunting. There is no cattle over here,” tells Faride.

The area where the nearly 130 Guarani are living is a natural reserve on a property called the Fazenda Santo Antônio.

 

Suicides 

In case the indigenous have to leave the area, the 60 children will not be able to continue attending school in Rio Brilhante. In the community already happened one suicide and there are worries that more would follow in case of an expulsion.

 

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Regional conferences on indigenous education started in São Gabriel da Cachoeira (state of Amazonas)

 

About 300 professors, educational managers, indigenous leaders and representatives of the government and the civil society gathered São Gabriel da Cachoeira (Amazone state) from Decembre 5 thru 18 to discuss the indigenous education in the region. It is the first step in the preparations for a national conference on the issue.

 

The meeting in São Gabriel da Cachoeira is the first step in the realisation of na old demando f the indigenous movement in Brasil. “This is very important for the communities of the Rio Negro. We will be able to evaluate the education in our municipalities and to point out directions to improve our experiences”, underlined Baniwa Madalena Custódio, the co-ordinator of the Federação das Organizações Indígenas do Rio Negro (FOIRN).

 

This first meeting united representatives of the 25 indigenous people of the municipalities of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Barcelos and Santa Isabel, all in the Rio Negro region. Of them, 38 will be delegated to the national conference.

 

Questions that the participants discussed were, among others, how can we conciliate the formal education with the differentiated indigenous education? What knowledge should be tested in the learning process? How can indigenous students be evaluated? At what age should indigenous kids start to learn Portuguese? How to deal with the lack of didactic material and scarce resources?

Many question remained without answers, but showed the direction of the meeting. “We, the indigenous ourselves, are starting to construct the kind of education that we want and the authorities are understanding that they have to listen to our opinions”, commented Madalena.

 

All together, eighteen conference meetings will be organised until August 2009. the national conference will take place in September with about 600 delegates. “We want to make sure that at least one representatve of every people will participate in that last meeting”,  says Gersen Baniwa, co-ordenator of the Indigenous Education department of the Secretary of Continuous Education, Alphabetization and Diversity, of the ministry of Education.

 

The next meeting will be March 10 thru 13, in Salvador, with the indigenous people from the states of Bahia, Alagoas e Sergipe.

 

Brasília, 23rd of december 2008

Cimi – Indianist Missionary Council

www.cimi.org.br