URL: http://www.amazonteam.org/index.php/242/Education_Suriname
Education: Suriname
In southern Suriname, ACT has established traditional schools in remote and isolated interior villages based on its Shamans and Apprentices program. Originally focused solely on indigenous medicine, under the guidance of village shamans, the program now teaches the students of two tribes a range of traditional knowledge subjects including tribal history, traditional handicrafts, geography, botany, forest ecology and writing. Field trips to gather forest data and to visit field camps and historical sites are essential to the curricula, as are opportunities for the indigenous children to share their knowledge with non-indigenous children in the city.
The students simultaneously attend the local state-sponsored school, with which the program has cooperative arrangements and for whom village leaders frequently present lessons on traditional subjects. Where funding is available, ACT has provided stipends to indigenous students so that they may receive formal technical training in the national capital to acquire skills that they may bring back to their communities. The program has been designed for replicability so that it may be brought to other villages in time. In the villages where there is no elementary school, the program presents the only structured learning program for children.
Read more about ACT’s Education program.