Below you find four low resolution videos – recorded on and sent by phone – in which Ofelia Salazar, Presidenta of AMUPAKIN, talks about the pandemic from her perspective, living in a road-accessible community of the Upper Napo region of the Ecuadorian Amazon. She speaks in Spanish. In time we will create subtitles for these videos and also provide transcripts. It is provided for general interest and as part of a collection of reference material for an article in The Conversation titled ‘How indigenous people in the Amazon are coping with the coronavirus pandemic‘.
AMUPAKIN is a self-organised birthing centre run by a collective of traditional Kichwa midwives. They specialise in ‘natural’, vertical births using traditional tools and techniques, including plants and chants, and also provide a range of holistic health services for women as well as men, including steam baths and medicines tailored to specific conditions, especially in the context of female reproduction.
When there is no lockdown AMUPAKIN welcome tourists, volunteers, students and researchers who want to learn about Kichwa culture in the Upper Napo and get to know the Amazon.