From a reservation located 78 kilometers from Leticia, the capital city of the Amazon, came Alexis Damasco Silvabelonging to the Tikuna, Cocama and Yagua reservation, to the campus of the UPB in MedellinFor 50 years, this institution has been a pioneer in offering the Bachelor of Science in Ethnoeducation In colombia.
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According to Alexis, he decided to study Ethnoeducation Because it is a type of training that allows students from an ethnic group or who are Afro to access humanistic learning, which also contributes to their training to face the challenges of today’s society.
“For us in the territories it is important, because we can contribute new knowledge to our communities. Also, the university becomes a reference that complements us as human beings and helps us face the challenges of imparting learning to other people,”
narrates Damasco Silva.
Olga Lucía Arbeláez Rojas, coordinator of this degree at the UPB Medellin Campusexplains that, beyond offering professional training to multiethnic groups or communities, this type of higher education specializes in training in the particularities and characteristics that each of the indigenous cultures possessesmestizas and raizales belonging to this degree. For example, in a language, some traditions.
Like Alexis, every year new students arrive at the UPB campus from 54 Colombian ethnic groups. Among them, Awa, Emberá, Kogui, Bend over o Wayuujust to mention a few. With this training, UPB has a presence in 26 departments of Colombia, in addition to having students from Venezuela and Kenya.
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It is estimated that more than 700 students are trained annually in Ethnoeducation at the UPB. A type of training in which this university invests $7 billion annual scholarships to all students of this degree.
Student leaders of their communities Alexis Damasco Silva takes 15 yearsapproximately, working at the School of Life, alongside the indigenous authorities of his town. Now, with his degree, he is specializing to teach classes to the other inhabitants of his community.
Damasco Silva says that the School of Life offers a very different education than that offered in city schools, since it is “a dialogue with our indigenous governors. It is one more formation of the knowledge that we possess as indigenous peoples.. Although we also have a Primary and Secondary school, where we also learn knowledge of the Western world.”
The Bachelor’s degree in Ethnoeducation of the UPB has a curriculum of 11 semesters. This undergraduate degree currently has 4,230 graduates. And it offers mixed, virtual and face-to-face training. Thus, every six months, and for 20 daysstudents visit the UPB EcoCampus to receive the intensive in-person component of their undergraduate degree. This becomes a space where interculturality is encouraged, since more than 26 different languages converge.
Finally, this program is offered by the UPB in alliance with the Missionary Institute of Anthropology -IMA-, of the Episcopal Conference of Colombia. Alexis says that this promotes equity, inclusion in the educational field and preservation of cultural diversity by bringing higher education to indigenous and Afro-descendant communities in Colombia.
2024-07-27 11:00:00