Video produced by Waiãpi students from Brazil is selected to My World 360º exhibition

Isolated since the beginning of the new coronavirus pandemic in the Waiãpi community, in Pedra Branca do Amapari, in Amapá, Brazil, the students Kauri Waiãpi, Motã Waiãpi, Kuripiri Waiãpi, the teacher Aikyry Waiãpi and the director of the indigenous school, Evilázio Ribas, still don’t know that the video Moma’e jarã kõ jikuwaê’ã kõ (The Owners We Can’t See) is today one of the immersive stories of the MY World 360º exhibition.

Created in 2018, MY World 360º is a UN partnership with Oculus (Facebook) and proposes the creation of stories through immersive technologies, addressing relevant issues within communities and relating them to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Currently, the online exhibition compiles over 100 stories, which are shown at UN meetings and events, now including the video The Owners We Can’t See.

360º Filmmakers Project

The video produced by the students of the Aramirã State Indigenous School only became a reality through the Cineastas 360º (360º Filmmakers) project, promoted by the NGO Recode. Also in partnership with Oculus, the NGO encourages high school students to reflect on the problems of their communities, and for 25 years has been working with digital empowerment, donating immersive technology equipment and training public school teachers.

How to use these equipment – headsets, tripods, smartphones, 360º cameras, softwares and teaching materials – and how can they contribute to solving issues in the community? Based on these questions, the project has already produced more than 100 short films throughout Brazil, reveals Rafael Romão, specialist in audiovisual education at Recode and pedagogical responsible for 360º Filmmakers.

The Owners We Can’t See

In the second half of 2019, the Aramirã State Indigenous School was one of the selected to represent the northern region of Brazil and the Intercultural Education teacher Aikyry Waiãpi traveled to Recode’s headquarters in Rio de Janeiro for training. Due to the dynamics of the school, Romão decided to help with the finalization of the project by going to the school in Pedra Branca do Amapari, instead of offering remote assistance, as in other projects.

“They wanted to spread Waiãpi knowledge and culture”, tells Romão in an interview to the United Nations Information Centre in Brazil (UNIC Rio). In the film shot with 360º technology, they say that the entities “that take care” of the forest are also the “owners” of rivers, forests, animals – everything that integrates the community’s habitat. They ask for an end to burning in the Amazon forest and water pollution, because the damage to the environment affects the visible peoples (the Waiãpi) and the invisible peoples (entities that own the entire ecosystem where they live).

“For them, all beings and phenomena have metaphysical owners. If they, for example, exploit a certain river too much, they would be offending this owner, who would take revenge on them. They have this reckless relationship with nature”, he explains. “The Waiãpi cosmology is important in this respect for the environment. They have a worldview that runs through everything, a disposition, an ethics of looking at things with a different look”, he adds.

Always linking the Sustainable Development Goals to the projects, Romão explains that the dynamics of approaching the goals happens in a way that it’s understood how local issues can be connected with the global. “First we make the video and then they connect the SDGs and realize how much a local problem is linked to the Sustainable Development Goals”, he says.

The video was finished with Romão when the students traveled to Brasília, for the national event of Recode in 2019. This year, the production was then selected for the MY World 360º exhibition, a surprise that the Waiãpi will only receive when they leave the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Watch the video here.

International Days – The video produced by the Waiãpi youth is closely related to the 2020 theme of International Youth Day – celebrated on 12 August – “Engaging Youth in Global Action”. On 9 August the UN also celebrates International Day of the World´s Indigenous Peoples. This year´s theme is “COVID-19 and the resilience of indigenous peoples”, focusing on innovative ways they use to demonstrate resilience and strength to fight the pandemic while suffering serious threats to their survival. Recently, United Nations in Colombia, Brazil and Peru called for renewed efforts on support and response to the Amazon region, as COVID-19 is escalating in the area and affecting millions of indigenous people.

On 10 August, a virtual celebration will mark the International Day of the World´s Indigenous Peoples on UN TV, from 9am to 10am (NY Time) at UN TV .  To learn more on this issue, access here the Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples.