The community of Bua is one of 7 remaining communities of the Tsachila culture. There are only around 2500 Tsachila left, and Bua is one of the communities that is working hard to preserve their rich culture in the face of the encroachments of modern life, most notably the rapidly expanding town of Santo Domingo which lies only a few kilometers to the east.

The Tsachila are renowned throughout Ecuador as shamans and healers, with a rich tradition of medicinal plant use. They are widely known as "Colorados," a reference to the red "achiote" paste that they use to dye their hair and the lines they paint on their bodies.

At Bua there is a cultural group, "Shinopi Bolon", which is developing an ethnographic musuem, interpretative trails through the last remaining jungle, and a medicinal and botanical garden. There are projects to reintroduce native species of trees through reforestation, as well as native animals that had been hunted out or disappeared over the last half century.

Yanapuma´s current projects in Bua are as follows:

• Agriculture: We maintain a permanent employee in Bua to work on improving agricultural techniques and making their system both more sustainable and more appropriate to their traditional cultural values.
• Community: We will be working with different sections of the community and with the local school to promote leadership skills, organizational capacity, and improve self-esteem, to better enable the Tsa'chila to develop their ability to control their own lives and futures.
• Health: We are renovating a disused building beside the local school to serve as a center for the promotion of health and well-being, to combine traditional medicine with modern medicine and to traing locals as health promoters to work on nutrition, hygiene, pre and post natal care, sexual and reproductive health, etc. The center will also provide a drop-in point for local farmers for information and services related to developing more sustainable agriculture.
• Mapping: We are working with the Tsachila to create a map of Bua using GPS and GIS technology. They hold a general title to their land, but since receiving it there have been many incursions by mestizos and colonists, and there is an unequal division of the land which has resulted in some young Tsachila having no land to farm. The map will also be vital in helping to plan reforestation and designation of protected areas.
• Education: Yanapuma sends volunteers and interns to work in the local school to help develop curriculum, teach English and other subjects like hygiene and nutrition, etc.
• Cultural Center Shinopi Bolon: We have been working with groups of volunteers on constructing cabañas, ecological toilets, and other infrastructure, as well as on maintaining forest paths and the medicinal gardens, and the development of the tourist and visitor potential of the site.
• Water: We are collaborating with Engineers Without Borders to provide a permanent solution to the problems of potable water and sanitation in the local school and eventually throughout the community.
• Waste and recycling: We have been sending volunteers and interns to work on recycling as there is currently no regular waste removal service in Bua.

Volunteering/Cultural Exchange Opportunities

Long-term volunteers are welcome to teach English and other subjects in the local school, help in curriculum development and to work on development of the musuem, medicinal gardens, reforestation and agriculture, health initiatives, waste and recycling, communication and participation, leadership, etc.

Bua is a great place to take part in our Cultural Exchange program. Visitors are welcome to spend a week or more with the community, learning about their culture, history, agriculture, and shamanic and healing practices.

Group projects are organized from time to time in Bua around specific community activities.  

Click here to learn about our Ecological Toilet project in Bua

Click here to read a volunteer's diary

Click here to see photos of Ka'sama 2007, the Tsachila New Year celebrations!

Click here  for general Volunteer Information

Click here to read our Norms of Conduct for visiting an indigenous community