Embassy Information

Embassy Event

U.S. SUPPORT FOR INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES AND TRADITIONS IN THE PROVINCE OF JUJUY
October 1-5, 2007

EcoAndina’s Pablo Condori (left) and Embassy officer Alfred Schandlbauer (second from right) with some residents of the town of Cabreria.

Almost fifteen years ago, the U.S. and Argentina agreed to create a fund to encourage Argentine non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to identify pressing natural resource problems affecting local ecosystems, and then design projects that both encourage protection and sustainable management of those resources, as well as promote child survival and development locally.

Since its inception, the Fund for the Americas has supported environmental and child welfare projects throughout Argentina, and each year donates hundreds of thousands of dollars more to those causes.

Two projects that illustrate how the U.S., through the Fund for the Americas, is supporting indigenous communities and their traditions were recently visited by Embassy environment and science counselor Alfred Schandlbauer. 

Outside the town of Maimara in central Jujuy Province sits the Cooperativa Agropecuaria Artesanal Union Quebrada y Valles (CAUQUEVA), a cooperative that, with the help of the Fund for the Americas, has improved the lives of many in the region.  The cooperative’s education programs have helped local farmers find new markets for their produce, while its laboratory helps them maintain an astonishing genetic diversity in the crops they pull from the rocky soil.  Many grains and tubers that the CAUQUEVA laboratory has helped to reintroduce in the region were originally cultivated by the Incas, and now serve once more as a source of sustenance and income for the region’s farmers. 

Farther north, in the high-altitude Puna region bordering Bolivia, the Fund for the Americas-sponsored EcoAndina Foundation is also working to improve the living conditions in the region’s rural communities.  By improving food safety and contributing in many ways to the protection of the local soil, water, and indigenous vegetation, EcoAndina has made a real difference in the lives of many in the Puna.