Designing a Developed Future for Suriname’s Matawai Forest Community
Over five days in late January 2016, for ten villages along Suriname’s upper Saramacca River populated by the nation’s Matawai Maroon community, the Avittiemauw Foundation and ACT led a workshop to enable the Matawai communities to continue their visualization of desired activities toward the proper development of their area.
Mobile Learning Technology for Rainforest Students
ACT has launched a pilot project that provides older students with tablets so that they may gather and share audiovisual materials to expand their understanding of coursework. A special thanks to the students of Apetina for sharing the following festive video, the first produced with their new tools.
Colombia Indigenous Community of Curare – Los Ingleses Partakes in Second Training Targeting Territorial Protection
With support from ACT, members of the Curare – Los Ingleses indigenous reserve participated in their second mapping/GPS training workshop, in order to strengthen the community’s conservation monitoring program that seeks to protect their territory and that of indigenous isolated peoples.
Peasant and Indigenous Communities Exchange Knowledge on Sustainable Native Tree Management in the Colombian Amazon
Representatives of indigenous and campesino communities from the Colombian Amazon, with support from ACT staff, participated last year in shared learning activities related to the sustainable management and use of native timber trees.
Plan Bee from Kwamalasamutu
In the indigenous village of Kwamalasamutu in southern Suriname, ACT has launched a pilot project to help the community members raise forest bees for income. The bees’ “bush honey” will be marketed in the nation’s capital city of Paramaribo.
Sorrow and Light in Rajasthan
Anna Nantawi and Ketoera Aparaka—women from indigenous villages of the nation of Suriname’s remote rainforest interior—are two months into their solar engineering training at the Barefoot College campus in India.
From the Zoo to Kwamalasamutu
Travel to the villages of the remote rainforest interior of the country of Suriname is expensive and difficult, prohibitive even for most well-off residents of the nation’s capital city and certainly for young students.
Hunting for Indicator Mushrooms in Suriname’s Rainforest
In Suriname’s rainforest interior, ACT’s joint project with the University of Utrecht encompasses inventories of a wide variety of species, including mushrooms—or “koropi” as they are known in the local Tareno language.
A Day in the Field: Wildlife Sightings + Transect Work in Suriname
It is 6 a.m. when the students wake up to the drip, drip, drip of water falling from nearby trees. It rained heavily throughout the night. The early morning rousing is now routine for these young people—collaborators in a“twinning” (partnership) project engaging ACT Suriname and the University of Utrecht.
Visiting Suriname’s Most Remote Village
Field work in Suriname comes at a hefty price—more than 60 percent of ACT-Suriname’s budget goes toward chartered flights to the country’s interior.
For this reason, our field staff make the most of their time during each community visit.