Living through Hope: Join with the voices of the forest!

The Ve’i Ñuu Savi Collective ir “House of the Rain Nation” and the Network of Indigenous Futures

The ecological cooperativism of the Maseual-Tutunaku of the TOSEPAN, Cuetzalan, Mexico.

We will explore ancestral ecosystems from the native communities in Mexico and how they can help us to move towards a world that celebrates and values all life.

On the one hand, we want to give visibility to the Nuu Savi´s struggle. The Nuu Savi, or people of the rain, are women weavers who defend the forests of the Mixteca Alta in Oaxaca. More than 300 families were evicted from their territory, and the entire community was threatened by the illegal felling of trees.

Representatives from the Nuu Savi will tell us about their ancestral and symbolic contact with nature in their territories and the recent history of violence and dispossession.

Sadly this is a common experience for many Abya Yala peoples, and continues today, alienating these guardians and caretakers from their ecosystems. In their staunch defense of their home from exile, they are spokespeople for the voiceless. And they speak through their artistic textiles.

We will also hear from another community, from the town of the Maseual-Tutunaku in Cuetzalan, Puebla. They have been able to resist mining company and government plans to destroy their territory. They are defenders of cultural diversity, of local ecology, of honey bees, of the deep-rooted indigenous wisdom of a people that considers itself an integral part of its natural context.

They have known how to organize themselves for decades, developing local cooperatives with the aim of caring for their territory, defending nature and coordinating the food producers of the bioregion. They offer us examples of successful gender cooperatives, energy autonomy and solidarity economy projects with the use of social currencies and a trilingual assembly organization that can inspire others towards a more horizontal and self-managed governance for the care of life.

Anahí Martinez Encinas

Facilitator and host

Expert in Education for Sustainability and Representative of the Red Transition Network in Mexico, she coordinates the Education for Life and Peace Network and is part of the ESD Expert Net.

She has worked in various fields of conservation, regenerative culture and systemic thinking, as well as the convergence of networks whose objective is good living and the creation of projects and initiatives for Transition.

She is dedicated to the creation and design of sustainability board games, educational materials and animations, as well as the creation of learning processes for institutions, networks, public and private schools in the country.

Roberto Spano

Co-facilitator and host

Sardinian architect, living in Mexico since 2017. Facilitator and activist of transition, permaculture and regenerative themes. He co-founded the Acahual Multidisciplinary Center and the Aldeas Verdes Market. Member of the Mexico Transition Hub and co-author of the book on solidarity economy: Bosquealdea-Learning to be Prosumers. He is a member of SoFA and SoPra (Practical Sociocracy) where he participates in various circles with different roles.

Florina Mendoza Jímenez

Representative of the Ve’i Ñuu Savi Collective, “House of the Rain Nation” and the Network of Indigenous Futures

I am part of the Ve´i ñuu savi community, “the house of the rain nation” and the Inigenous Futures Network. Activist spaces defending our towns’ territories, diverse wisdom, languages, memory and history.

Paulina Garrido Bonilla

Tosepan Cooperatives Union representative.

This union incorporates 8 regional cooperatives and three civil associations. Currently the organization brings together 34,000 families, the vast majority of them belonging to the original Nahua and Tutunaku groups. The member population is made up of 410 local cooperatives belonging to 26 municipalities in the northeastern highlands of the state of Puebla in Mexico.

Ilse Riaño Paz

Defensora del Bosque.

My name is Ilse Riaño Paz. I’m 26. I was born in Ndoyonoyuji San Esteban Atatlahuca, Tlaxiaco Oaxaca. I’m a defender of the forest. Actually, I am currently in a hostel following forced displacement of our community.

Dora Napolitano

Representative of the Mending the Planet Collective.

Textile artist with studies in anthropology and public health, and most recently, permaculture. In 2016, the Mending the Planet project started, with workshops upcycling old fabric (“rubbish”) to make new things. The workshops teach ancient ways of creating and help us to reflect on how we use and inhabit the world.

Since 2020, the project has evolved into a Latin American collective with embroiderers in Mexico, Argentina and Chile. In 2021, they create a forest of over 154 trees sown from recycled fabric – a Forest of Hope, which Dora took to COP26 to share in the call to all humanity that we must be more like the forest if we are to prosper well together.

Disappointed by the minimal advances made at an international level, the collective is now focusing on opening up conversation spaces with every citizen – our families and neighbours, passers-by and dog walkers – because we believe that change has to start from the bottom up.

The Forest of Hope is now in Querétaro and will continue its journey through Mexico until it goes to Argentina and then Chile in 2023.