ASITURSO- Asociación Integral de Turismo de Santiago de Okola
Carry out a series of practical and inter-related workshops and events that will transform the Sleeping Dragon Community Center into a space for preserving cultural practices and engaging youth in celebration of their community’s past, present and future.
In 2015, ASITURSO has been fully consolidated into a legally recognized community-based tourism association. Community members had long been interested in developing a community-based tourism project in their village, because it is located at the base of one of the area’s most important spiritual sites, the Sleeping Dragon, as well as on the shore of one of the Central Andes’ most important sacred sites, Lake Titicaca. Faced with the out-migration of youth and the loss of local varieties of many Andean crops, villagers believe that tourism can be an incentive for their children to stay at home and continue their farming traditions and their role as “guardians” of the Sleeping Dragon.
The construction of the infrastructure of the Dragón Dormid Community Center balance of local materials and ancestral construction techniques. They held ceremonies of thanksgiving to Mother Earth and Cuntur Mamani, according to their traditions, gradually turning the Centro Comunitario Dragón Dormido into a sacred space for cultural exchange on the slopes of the Dragón Dormido mountain. participatory planning and management workshops, enabling partners to monitor the management of financial resources.
