Join the Fight for the Right to Water!

The Chocó Rainforest people are suffering because palm oil plantations are trying to strangle them out and poison their water (for an example closer to home, imagine the horrific circumstances of the 1850's Gold Rush for California Native peoples). The problem is most people have heard of the Amazon Rainforest, but never the Chocó Biogeographic Region (that includes both rainforests and cloudforests, which are higher elevation forests).

The reason for making Together for Water has been, how can you help Indigenous and Black communities in a rainforest that people don’t even know exists?!? Together for Water helps people understand that this rainforest called the Chocó and the people who live there are trying just to survive and access a life with dignity.

The Chocó Biogeographic Region traverses the Pacific Coast of Panama, through Colombia, and into the province of Esmeraldas, Ecuador, where Black and Indigenous communities coexist. In 2010, the communities of La Chiquita and Guadalito, joined together to file the FIRST constitutional-level lawsuit in the world against two oil palm companies for polluting their only source of water, their river, and thus violating the Rights of Nature and of the communities Rights to Living Well.

Although the two communities legally won their historical lawsuit granting rights to the river and the forest, to this day, reparations have not been made. Their water continues to be contaminated. People continue to die and become seriously ill. (See https://www.together4water.com to learn more).

In 2016, we decided to take action for ourselves, as a collective (the two Chocó communities together with the Roots & Routes community), and spread the word that the Chocó Rainforest and the long-term struggles of the human forest guardians exist!

What did we do? 1) We co-created Roots & Routes IC, our 501c3 non-profit organization (2018). What did we do? 1) We co-created Roots & Routes IC, our 501c3 non-profit organization. 2) We co-produced this documentary film! Roots & Routes, La Chiquita, and Guadualito, with collaboration from Selvas Producciones, has been working on this film, Together for Water (see together4water.com), for the past seven years!!! The documentary is finally done, and now the documentary is taking off!!

We had two pre-release celebrations in Ecuador with the co-producing communities—one in Ibarra, Ecuador (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOV5wjh_TUE&t=22s) and one in Quito!

WHY DO WE NEED YOUR HELP?

Now, we are in the blast off stage! THE DEBUT of the film in Ecuador and beyond! The La Chiquita and Guadualito youth will be accompanying the film in these events:

We are excited about everything we have accomplished so far and the opportunities ahead of us. However, we find ourselves in a complicated financial situation because the organization has gone into debt! In order to continue, we also need to cover some important expenses:

Can YOU help this show to go on? Any amount that people can contribute is super appreciated! Your contribution would be invaluable to ensure that we can move forward with the distribution and exhibition of the film and the whole movement for the Ecuadorian Chocó that accompanies this vital documentary tool.

We are so grateful for helping us get to where we are, and we thank you in advance for your support to keep on fighting the good fight for a healthier world for all people!

MORE ABOUT THE FILM TOGETHER FOR WATER

This documentary film is a collective effort to tell our stories, those of the Awá Indigenous people and of the Black peoples of the Chocó Rainforest. It is our story, and also the story of those who are no longer here.

The oil palm companies polluted our way of life. They polluted our water. They polluted our well-being.

We have lost the quality of our food, and now we have to go to the city of San Lorenzo, we have to buy what nature used to provide us. What we really need is our water.

We long for our river and ache with nostalgia. Something has rumbled within, something we had practically forgotten has been reborn, something we had lost.

The images within the film are the result of an intense work of collective creation, of research and memory. We met to reflect together on the contamination of our water, to create a message that contributes to a more just society—one that’s more empathetic to diverse struggles and is based on storytelling, respect, and the right to a dignified life for all peoples.

Camera in hand, this is a diary of plural landscapes, of ancestral ways of knowing and being that have been disrupted. Our ancestors came to these territories in Esmeraldas searching for freedom and settled in this place where we live. Now the companies have arrived to exploit our territories. We demand that the palm oil companies, Los Andes and Palesema, return our clean water and pay for the damages they inflicted on us. We demand justice from the Ecuadorian State, which has forgotten our communities.

We are young people. We are children, we are daughters and sons, we are sisters and brothers. We are Indigenous, and we are Black. We are activists, we are world changers, we are leaders, we are survivors, and we are liberating these rivers. We are liberating ourselves for the life of all beings in the province of Esmeraldas.

But we can’t do it alone. Twenty years so far and still ongoing. We need allies. We need your support. Please join and contribute to our fight for the right to water.

RESULTS WE WANT FROM THE DOCUMENTARY