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In college in the forest

Pacorel Julie and Jean-Baptiste Mouttet by Indians for Indians, is the philosophy championed by the University of native Venezuela to save the native cultures.

a university is a bit special, which studies the most often outside, sitting in a circle under the trees. Some students wear a simple loincloth, others come and go barefoot, all speak a language other than English.

University Tauca (center of the country) is at the heart of Venezuela native at the confluence of Rio Caura and Route Ciudad Bolivar-Caicara del Orinoco the two main roads of Indian country.

are taught fish farming, worldview (set of concepts and beliefs that form the worldview), crafts or history of Venezuela to 90 students from eleven different ethnic groups including the Warao, Karina Pemón, Yekuana, Sanima E'ñepá, and Wotuja Pume.

"
Remove shame ethnic These young people from across the country, even Brazil, to study together, forged inter-ethnic friendships for the first time, all driven by the same desire to preserve their ancestral culture.

Luis Eduardo Pérez, Board member of the Rectorial IVU, recounts an Indian Pemón
visited for several weeks to several hundreds of miles from home to carry out a project to help Indians Pume. "Before the Pemón

were barely aware of the existence of Pume and vice versa," says he.

"
With the University we want all the natives know their rights, working in their communities and maintain their rich culture. We want to remove the shame they feel often ethnic . " The researcher ensures that there is urgency: " The losses are already high, eg in

e'ñepá, telling that in previous decades many of their elders have died without transferring their knowledge to the next generation because it uninterested. " started as a civil association after the Foundation Kiwxi Amerindian cause," University of Venezuela has any Native Just last June, to be recognized by President Hugo Chavez.

Dispose of part of classical education The idea was born in the mind of a priest, the Jesuit Jose Korta, but today the organization is mainly run by Indian people themselves, and calls itself free from any religious influence.

Originally the university project, it was primarily to get rid of the rigid framework of classical education, curriculum entirely made by non-natives. A framework within which the concept of intercultural meant only "The ability of natives, seen as inferior to mainstream Western culture, seen as superior"
.

From admission to graduation, the University offers to its original design included. The Bachelor, which often requires obtaining "

acculturation of young, forcing him to go study in a foreign city far away and his needs and values" is not mandatory to integrate the courses. The candidate, at least 18 years, must prove that he knows and uses his native language and being "chosen" by the community for his involvement in the life of it.
notes of solidarity and responsibility

it focuses on indigenous law, history, ecology, ethnology, languages or art as a specialty, the student will after four months of teaching the theory put into practice in her village by putting in place productive projects for the community, such as the construction of hives .

It is also estimated that as much on his knowledge on its commitment to this last. He will get notes based on the values of identity, responsibility, friendship, solidarity and creativity.

At the end of their second year studies, students will each publish two reference books for their communities, on topics as diverse as grammar or oral history of their family.
The opportunities of this option are also quite different from those offered by the market power of education. Students become more professional in their third year, for example in ethno-botany ethno-medicine, and "then begin
available to their community and their ethnicity, without seeking personal enrichment, but in a context of solidarity with their culture" .

Today, the first students trained by the Indigenous University of Venezuela distinguished themselves as leaders of associations defending indigenous rights, and help publicize the territorial claims of some marginalized groups. The University, with its independence, is indeed very involved nationally in the fight for Indian rights.