Every purchase you make with Four Visions directly supports these incredible projects.
Together we are making a huge impact in the safeguarding of traditional cultures, lands, and people.
Our partnership with Children of the Rainforest has continued to evolve and deepen in beautiful ways over the last 3 years. IndigiGenius has partnered with Chief Isku Kua to save the Yawanawa language from extinction utilizing groundbreaking AI technology. IndigiGenius is led by computer scientists and language activists Michael Running Wolf (Northern Cheyenne / Lakota / Blackfeet) and Caroline Running Wolf (Old Coyote / Crow Nation). After working for years as an engineer on Amazon’s ‘Alexa’, Michael Running Wolf created a language reclamation process for endangered Indigenous languages.
Using Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), the same technology powering Amazon's Alexa, and a two year long language data collection, the process is in full swing. The team is building AI voice technology to amplify Yawanawa language learning. We are proud to be a Guardian of New Hope. Our ongoing monthly contributions this year are dedicated to supporting this incredible vision.
Working in partnership with Magic Fund (Movement for Amazonian Growth and Indigenous Cultures), Four Visions is sponsoring the first ever Women’s Health Brigade in the Putumayo region this year. This will be a multi day event where traditional midwives, grandmothers, and healers come together to offer health care services, education, and healing therapies to indigenous women throughout the region. We will also be sourcing much needed, ecological menstrual products as part of this important initiative. Our goal is to service over 200 women in the Ingano villages of Cundagua and Yungillo in 2024.
The desire to bring forth this initiative has been on our hearts and minds for a few years now, and we are thrilled to bring this vision to fruition this year! Stay tuned for updates as the Brigade is scheduled for October 2024.
In February 2024, we launched our Ancient Future Merch Line. This is a very special organic cotton line that we created to fund and raise awareness for a beautiful musical education project for indigenous youth in Putumayo, Colombia. Students are now receiving music lessons in traditional flutes, guitar, percussion, and singing from some of the most established musicians in their communities. Children are gifted instruments to continue their studies and be able to contribute to the continuation of their culture. More updates coming soon!
Use this text to share information Spearheaded by Guatemalan Wisdom Keeper Nana Marina Cruz, this organization is composed of spiritual guides of Tz'utujil, K'iche and Kaqchikel Mayan descent; midwives, healers, and community leaders from Guatemala. This year we are sponsoring an important cultural center that the Association is building, helping to construct the organizational headquarters, a center for healing and ancestral learning for the Mayan communities.
The center is dedicated to developing health programs for local Mayan community members using traditional healing practices, intercultural education, protection and recovery of sacred places, food sovereignty, sustainability, and reforestation through community projects; and biodiversity and ecotourism initiatives in the Mayan Heartland.
Every year, we set aside a portion of our funds for individual families in need.. So far this year we have contributed to Taita Humberto’s medical expenses. Abuelo Humberto Piaguaje is from the Siona and plays a crucial role in the Yagé communities of Putumayo. Following a stroke, he has needed various medical treatments, hospitalization, and physical therapy. We have been able to contribute substantially to help cover the costs of his care.
At the beginning of 2024, we also were called upon to support an Ingano School in Putumayo for over 40 children who had no toilet at their school! We were able to build them washroom facilities. It was incredibly rewarding and humbling to see the happy faces of sweet, innocent children, thanking us for their new bathroom!
Last year, in partnership with Magic Fund Amazon, we raised the funds for the first 10 hectares of land in Putumayo, and began the planting of endangered medicinal botanical plant species as part of an important land preservation project. We are raising more funds now to fund the reforestation and planting of the entire 10 hectares.
Four Visions also sponsored a very special music project, produced by none other than the amazing Ajeet Kaur. This album seeks to raise awareness about the importance of preservation of ancestral plants and botanicals and features songs by Taita Juanito, Peia, Ajeet, and other incredible medicine musicians. The proceeds of this album are going to Magic Fund’s Planting Magic Initiative to support the ongoing annual maintenance that this project will require over the next 5 years. While it has taken a bit longer than we expected, we are thrilled to share that the launch of this album is scheduled for late summer 2024!
Learn more about Planting Magic and other important initiatives at https://magicfundamazon.com/
Four Visions’ monthly contributions helped pay the salaries of the teachers of Isku Vakehuhu Yawanawa Language School. These funds were also directed towards the maintenance and upkeep of the school. Under Chief Iskukua’s guidance and vision, the school expanded in 2023, and Four Visions was able to sponsor the build of one of the four additional classrooms that they added. If you are interested in supporting the great work that COTR are doing, check out https://cotr.co/. If you are interested in hearing the inauguration music album of the talented children of the New Hope Village, go to yawakids.com.
Last November, we donated books, clothing, and art supplies to an Ingano school in Putumayo to bless 70 Indigenous kids during the holiday season. This special school focuses on the principles of good thought, law of origin, maternal language studies, ancestral wisdom practices, and indigenous identity.
We partnered with H.E.A.L. The Heaven and Earth Ancestral League, a new 501(c)3 organization that supports Veterans who are interested in healing through ancestral plant medicines. Last August we sent 2 veterans on scholarship to Colombia through H.E.A.L. 's veteran's program, Operation Purify, to visit Finca Sacha Samay for a 14 day Ancestral Healing Retreat. We look forward to continuing to support Veterans through this initiative and others.