The Manu National Park, to which Kosñipata belongs, possesses one of the most important riches in the world in terms of biodiversity. This zone is located between the cloud forest and the lowland forest and has certain regulations for logging and other interventions that, unfortunately, have not been respected.

If we begin to promote and maintain this natural connection with children, the destruction will be less and a new way of seeing the importance of protecting nature can emerge. In many years of experience with reforestation, we have realized that the integration of a new education is the basis for change and now we want to start a new project of a school in the forest that does exactly that: fostering coexistence with nature. An education where we learn from nature and use it without destroying it; to use it and extract from it in a conscious and natural way.

We plan to design the space of the school in a way that is integrated with nature, using materials from the same place: stones, sand, bamboo, etc. We want children to be able to learn about the flora and fauna by working with a vegetable garden, a nursery, with animals, working and using bamboo, etc. We also want to incorporate the youth and, very importantly, the mothers, and maybe make different spaces like a women's house in the future to be able to do work for them as well. The hardest situation in the region involves children, young people and women because there are no spaces or future for them. 

There are several social conflicts in Kosñipata’s communities, such as indiscriminate logging, drug addiction, and prostitution of minors, among others. However, this is a place with a lot of potential in terms of biodiversity and the existence of local actors who have been carrying out activities for the sake of local development.

From these actions, the team takes this background of struggle and community organization as a basis for developing a cooperative work for the sake of development and community learning. It is for this reason that an articulating network of pedagogical spaces with, from and for the community is proposed, which in turn will be designed together with the various local actors and built with local materials.

First, it is proposed to develop a seed project, an architectural intervention on a piece of land donated by the community and then, in the medium term, to weave a network of educational supports based on learning modules and communal spaces. The objective is to provide alternatives to current problems. Also, to promote the strengthening of their identity through the learning of their history and cultural richness. It also seeks to give greater presence and importance to the children and youth of the community by building different spaces where they can develop different skills and techniques such as, for example, self-construction with sustainable materials, leading community design workshops, planting various local species, etc., and, In this way, achieving development hand in hand with comprehensive and sustainable education.

The contact with the community started with a request for help, urgency and love from Verena Wüstinger, a mother in Kosñipata who was faced with a difficult situation: not being able to count on quality education in one of the inner rural parts of the Peruvian jungle. The temporary solution of taking the children far away to educate them did not convince her because it would not include children of her friends, close workers, neighbors, the family that she was already extending in the jungle, a beautiful place to live, despite its many shortcomings. So she came up with the crazy idea of building a school, still without knowing how or in collaboration with whom, but soon the idea was making sense and the voices of other mothers joined in almost instantly. We listen to them now, and we will try to respond from what we know, adapting the territory and creating spaces for all the learning that the community already has, shares and also forgets, to protect and sow it as they themselves protect the space where they live: Kosñipata.

Now in this project are involved three non-profit organizations: Sacha Q'ente (ancestral nature-based healing), Qoyllur Q'ente (Reforestation) and Learling Landscapes (architectural design); also with 2 village communities that live in the sourroudings of Kosñipata: Patria and Pilcopata. Each of the communities with mothers, chidren, teachers interested in improving the learning system; and also with public schools and public spaces with a lot of potential to intervene.

Miro board of the design process
Flickr Learning Landscapes