Two decades later they found themselves again amidst fear, loss and uncertainty.
It was 15 March 2020, and the Peruvian authorities announced a lockdown due to the spread of the COVID-19 virus— at the time, a new and unknown illness.
Their community, called El Milagro, had a reason to be fearful. They had a health centre, but no doctors, medical supplies or medicines.
At first, the Ashaninka people took measures to protect themselves from the virus by closing off their territory to outsiders and isolating themselves. But as time wore on, the community found themselves struggling with hunger and dwindling supplies.
To address the growing food scarcity, they designated a group to venture out and trade for supplies. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before COVID-19 began to infiltrate their community, and many fell ill.
"Many of our brothers and sisters got sick, and some didn't make it," Rosa and Hector recounted.
Regaining a lost opportunity
The pandemic also took from them what had recently become an opportunity to improve nutrition and livelihoods in the community. Back in 2018, local authorities had supported 18 families in El Milagro to install fish farms and raise fingerlings.
The Indigenous Peoples group hoped to improve and prevent children’s malnutrition, which in the Amazonian communities sometimes reaches up to 20.3 percent, according to government figures.
The arrival of the pandemic abruptly ended the initiative.
As the health situation improved at the end of 2021, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) with the support of the Government of Canada conducted rapid food and local market’s assessments to strengthen rural and agricultural community-based organizations.
The initiative aimed to improve nutrition and livelihoods while also focusing on empowering Indigenous Women and supporting gender-responsive public protection programmes.
FAO visited El Milagro, where the community expressed clearly the need of restarting and expanding the fish farming project the pandemic had taken from them.
Rosa assumed the leadership of this initiative. Her job was to coordinate workflows and promote the participation of more women to raise fingerlings.
“We learned how to prepare the fish feed, how to improve water circulation and how to organize ourselves better,” she explains, adding that the fish has also helped improve her people’s nutrition.
"I dream of a community where malnutrition is a thing of the past, and women can weave and laugh without fear," she shares.
With the support of FAO and the Government of Canada, El Milagro and 42 other communities across the provinces of Atalaya in the region of Ucayali and Satipo were able to revive their fish farming and other agricultural projects, including growing crops like coffee and cocoa.
