- Indigenous and local community women who protect the main tropical forests of Mesoamerica share their knowledge about traditional medicine to treat COVID 19
- The episodes will be released fortnightly and each one will last between 5 and 10 minutes.
The forests speak and fortunately we now have a way to listen to them once again with the return —on February 28th— of the Forests of Stories podcast.
Forests of Stories was born to transmit the identity and culture of the indigenous peoples and local communities of Mesoamerica through their own voices. Its second season, Wise Roots (Raíces Sabias), aims to make visible the prevention, containment and treatment strategies for COVID 19 that were created from the traditional knowledge of the communities that make up the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests (AMPB).
This new season is made up of 6 episodes of between 5 and 10 minutes each that will be released every on Spotify, Apple Podcast and YouTube —this platform also includes subtitles in English and Spanish.
In each installment, a community leader will share the knowledge acquired by the people she represents during the COVID 19 pandemic. The contents vary between recipes to treat the virus with medicinal plants, spiritual recommendations and community accompaniment, as well as diets that support the strengthening of the immune system and the recovery of patients.
The second season of Forests of Stories was produced in collaboration with the Coordinator of Territorial Women Leaders of Mesomamerica (CMLT), AMPB’s line of work that seeks to project and discuss the threats and challenges faced by indigenous and community women for the defense of territory, natural resources, forests and culture. The interviews were part of the research process of the Protocol for Attention to COVID 19 from spirituality and traditional Mesoamerican medicine, developed with the support of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI).
“The indigenous peoples and local communities of Mesoamerica are facing COVID 19 with the strength of our traditional knowledge and our spirituality. In many communities, women are at the forefront of this challenge: crafting our own recipes and creating prevention and support strategies. Each episode contains testimonials from these fighting and resistant women; which we compiled during the research process for the construction of the COVID 19 Attention Protocol from Traditional Medicine, which we will be presenting on March 30th”, explains Sara Omi, President of the CMLT.
Where is one, we are all: the first episode
The first episode, entitled, Where there is one, we all are. (Donde está una, estamos todas), transmits the knowledge of the women leaders of the Petén area, Guatemala, through the voices of Irma Consuelo López Esquivel, Magdalena Peralta and Mayra Morales. In this installment, they talk about remedies to reduce throat discomfort with drinks based on lemon, honey, ginger, among other ingredients, in addition to the mental, moral and spiritual support that is given to patients during their illness.
“We want to make these recommendations of natural medicine’s garden plots so that we are prepared for the many diseases that will come after COVID 19, as it is known, and this is the moment for all of us to do our garden plots in our houses for our health and for the well-being of the family. Here and all over the world”, comments Irma during the first episode.
You can listen to the new episodes of Forests of stories in the following links:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/05i9reYIacg3eNkhHLNXT0?si=7a618ea262ac4448
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bosques-de-historias/id1554109386
YouTube: https://youtu.be/2qULostz8Aw
