Maloca means communal house, it represents the unity of the Asheninka community, an indigenous people living in the central forest of the Ucayali department in the Atalaya province of eastern Peru. The maloca is a large communal house inhabited by the indigenous of the Amazon. It is a traditional social unit which has cosmogonic and…
He never existed, yet his faithful are many. Saint Simón is the fusion between the unrecognised Spanish saint and an indigenous god. He is the primary saint in Guatemala, and you can see effigies of him everywhere, he is represented in the image of a man of means with a moustache, dressed in black, wearing…
In the last years one of the different ethnicities that live on the continent was put under the spotlight in West and Central Africa due to the violence and turmoil that other groups attribute to it. This ethnicity has several names (Peul, Fulani and Feulbe), and several ‘surnames’ (Toucouleur, Mbororo, etc.), and some related critical…
Nomadism caused Peuls to move between different areas that, after the decolonization, became independent states. While normally the farmers developed links and attachment to the new states, many herders kept on moving between the borders thanks to the difficulties in controlling them. But, in this way, they were permanently perceived as strangers, even if they…
It is the new frontier of the Google and Facebook Web colossi that will invest billions of dollars in infrastructure to cable the continent. Possibilities and questions. It is called 2Africa – but it is also known as Simba – this Facebook project whose aim is to cable the entire continent. It is expected to…
Pope Francis transforms the Synod of Bishops from an ‘event’ to a ‘process’, with the People of God at the centre. The synod will comprise three phases, the final one – a fundamental step – being the celebration of the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October 2023. The articulation of the different…
The Al Mowafaqa Ecumenical Institute of Theology in Rabat, created at the initiative of the only two officially recognised churches in Morocco, the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church, wants to be a unique experience of ecumenism in the midst of the Islamic community. The Al Mowafaqa Ecumenical Institute of Theology is located in Hassan,…
“Mining activities have huge impacts on the lives of the local communities and indigenous people in Brazil. I come from a country where mining has caused immeasurable disasters from colonial times to today”. A Comboni Missionary talk about his involvement in mining advocacy. The largest open-pit iron mine operates in the land where I worked…
A new generation of climate activists is emerging on the continent. “We will be the decision-makers of tomorrow; it is now that we must take the lead.” Ayakha Melithafa from South Africa, 20, wants to be the voice of people of little, people of colour and small farmers, those who are the first to be…
For years now, tens of thousands of tons of electric and electronic material have been poured into the continent resulting in environmental pollution and damage to people’s health. Now, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan have banned such imports. On 1 June 2022, countries of the EAC, the Community of East Africa (Kenya,…
On February 1st, 2021, the Myanmar army (Tatmadaw) announced the change of regime in the country. Within a few hours, the military arrested the leaders of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party that won the elections twice in five years, gaining about 80% of the seats in Parliament in November 2020. The army’s…
France and the EU announced the withdrawal of their troops from Mali. The jihadists may reap the benefits. Already, coastal states are under threat. On the 17 February 2022, ahead of the EU-Africa summit in Brussels, the French president Emmanuel Macron announced that France, the EU and Canada will withdraw their troops from Mali, nine…
The latest African Youth Survey from the Ichikowitz Family Foundation, a leading African foundation promoting active citizenship across the continent, provides a comprehensive look at the…