(W) indigenous universities: education, research and community social work

Session Nr.1: "Indigenous universities: education, research and community social work"

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that “Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own language, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning” (2007:14.1).

The ILO-Convention No.169 (1989:25.2) assures that “Health services shall, to the extent possible, be community-based. These services shall be planned and administered in co-operation with the peoples concerned and take into account their economic, geographic, social and cultural conditions as well as their traditional preventive care, healing practices and medicines”.

The role of indigenous and intercultural universities in Latin-America is to exercise indigenous peoples’ self-determination to education and knowledge production through autonomous institutions. This is a premises and a tool to achieve the full enjoyment of all rights for indigenous peoples, and includes particular priorities and methods for research and learning pertinent to indigenous cultures and languages. URACCAN (Nicaragua) and UAIIN (Colombia) provide higher education adapted to their contexts, local systems for knowledge production and learning. Both universities struggle for formal recognition as intercultural universities within their respective countries where western models for education dominate.

In the field of health and social work URACCAN and UAIIN have established institutes and programs pertinent to their multicultural contexts. Their model for education and research is founded on practical experience and a principle of close interaction with local communities with an intercultural gender perspective, for the collective construction of knowledge aiming to benefit the same communities. This method is important to reach the goals of self-determination within autonomous education, social welfare and health systems for indigenous and afro-descendant peoples in Nicaragua and Colombia.