Local Partner: Yakanal – Indigenous Youth Cultural Exchange
The project will be based on the transmission and practice of traditional knowledge of the Moon to animate ancestral wisdom and practice related to women’s/non-binary and community wellbeing. Through intercultural collaborations including Maya/Zapotec/Mixtec//Pueblo young adults and elders, we hope to nourish unique attributes connected to the Moon in the context of fertility, midwifery, weaving, natural pigments, native foods, plant medicine, and cultural astronomy. Project Goals are connect with land and sky – by animating the importance of place, honor the source – by recognizing, respecting, and sustaining elder knowledge and share knowledge and practice – through cultural exchange and by anchoring the work in local projects of global impact.
The goal of Mother Moon is to organize, comp are, and contrast the results of the research conducted in Guatemala, Mexico-Oaxaca, Mexico-Yucatan, New Mexico, and Peru in the context of the Moon. The themes are astronomy, agriculture, calendaring, fertility, midwifery, weaving, natural pigments, and plant medicine. The Mother Moon initiative was implemented with the participation of indigenous young women and elders from Guatemala, Oaxaca, Yucatán, and New Mexico.
Local Parther:
YAKANAL Exchange program has been supported 2016 and 2019 by Pawanka Fund.Yakanal has a website (https://www.yakanal.org/) that was built by one of the female youth participants. The site shares project results within the framework of YAKANAL’s mission: “To strengthen cultural identity and leadership capacities in Indigenous youth, preparing them to engage with other cultures while preserving their own”.
