ORIGINS

While our work involves a wide scope of activities and projects, it has a single unifying theme: the application of indigenous knowledge to inform and shape projects that empower and give voice to local communities and peoples.

Indigenous knowledge – sometimes referred to as traditional or local knowledge – refers to the collective wisdom acquired through a combination of lived experience and teachings that are often passed down through many generations.  While indigenous knowledge may be extremely localized to a specific place or group of people, it can also be comprehensive in scope and encompass entire cosmologies and worldviews.  It includes such things as oral histories, stories, legends, rituals, the medicinal uses of local plants, subsistence and harvest information, knowledge of a local language, and artistic practices and expressions.  It can also be related to more contemporary or immediate issues, such as an understanding of what it takes to survive as a street child or live with a disability in different settings, or shared concepts of social suffering and healing following a traumatic event.

We work with local communities and partners to identify the knowledge base required to meet project objectives, collect and manage that information in locally appropriate ways, and use it as a basis to inform community-based initiatives.  Our work falls into a wide variety of areas, including health care, education and curriculum development, cultural heritage revitalization, natural resource management, human rights and social justice, and grass-roots development projects that have as their aim the social and economic empowerment of marginalized groups.