“I feel powerful, I feel like we can do this,” – one of the participants of a media workshop told me.
And I have no doubts it’s true.
If you’ve been following my work, you know it has a strong anticolonial and anti-imperial lens. And before the genocide in Gaza started, I would write not only about Palestine. I would also write about Latin America, as it’s a (vast, I know) region that’s very close to my heart and where I have spent a big part of my adult life. This blog post is about a beautiful anticolonial initiative – and ongoing work – that I simply have to invite you to support, or at least to learn about.
So I am in Panama now, and some weeks ago I wrote about a beautiful anticolonial initiative that I would get to support soon. Well, I am back from it: I was just in Darién, east of Panama, where I had the honour and privilege of facilitating media workshops in the Indigenous Wounaan community, organised by Ulu Films, an Indigenous documentary filmmaking collective. Israel.
The kindness and openness of the Wounaan community here will stay with me forever. It is safely locked in my heart. But the story – and the invitation I have for you – is not about me. It’s about supporting an anticolonial initiative: to invest in media training for communities who have requested it, having identified it as one of the elements for community thriving.
Because people don’t need the government, nonprofits, the mainstream media, or anyone else to speak for them: they can speak for themselves.
From state violence to environmental issues to telling the world what their culture is about.
And it can’t be an easier investment: to stand in solidarity with those whose voices have been historically silenced and neglected.
To stand in solidarity with those who are also protecting our Earth’s critical rainforests, doing the work that we all should be doing.
To say “I see you, and I know only YOU know what stories you want to tell.”
The Ulu Films team is amazing: knowledgeable, dedicated, relational, and also just really lovely. This small but mighty team has so much planned for this year: more workshops, more professional trainings, Indigenous festival support, and so much more.
When so much is happening in the world that could easily – if we weren’t consciously rejecting this direction – leave us hopeless, I invite you to invest in hope but also concrete action.
Amazing things are happening in Darién, and I wish that one day you, too, could see and experience it first-hand. But for now, we have to invest in the resources needed so that the stories of the communities can reach you if you happen to travel there one day or not.
If you’re willing and able, I invite you to support Ulu Films’ work by going to this page.
I also invite you to follow the anticolonial work that Health In Harmony and FSC Indigenous Foundation are doing, including together with Ulu! – in Panama and beyond.
As always, stay strong, check on others, and keep your heart open.
❤️💔❤️
Justina
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