ACCESO Starts Traditional Knowledge investigation and documentary pilot on the Red Warriache of Mapuches in Santiago, Chile
Proyecto ACCESO has long worked to empower indigenous people around Latin America. We have pioneered skills training for indigenous legal defense teams, created community dispute resolution clinics, and expanded traditional justice mechanisms through the development of legislation. As part of our over 15 years of commitment to legal innovation, we now turn our attention to Traditional Knowledge.
Traditional Knowledge refers to the conservation of native sciences, medicine, folklore, artistry and biological diversity within an indigenous culture. This project comprises of multiple components: archiving, publicizing, and promoting the various successes in this emerging arena. All of these are aimed to empower indigenous people and educate the general public. This project is an engine to create an international convention on traditional knowledge, something that the international community has yet to meaningfully address. The program will also demonstrate the mutual and sustainable benefit of bringing together Western-based intellectual property laws and Traditional Knowledge.
This trailer will help you gain a better sense of ACCESO’s current project and most importantly, the necessity of preserving and promoting Traditional Knowledge for the future of our global commons.
The year-long project with the Red Warriache shall serve as a basis for a curriculum. The footage and editing shall also serve as a pilot for a documentary series.
These links of interest demonstrate ACCESO’s long-time commitment to Indigenous issues:
Guaraní Liberty Initiative - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6jYhuBd90k
ACCESO Indígena - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XNY53uV5dw
PSA Bolivia - Towards a New Constituent Assembly – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45V7N3mX5Tc
Usos y Costumbres - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVNINJiJ8Ck
California Western School of Law student Carley Doyle, who worked on the Traditional Knowledge project with Professor James Cooper, Director of ACCESO, and Sebastián Vives del Solar, Chilean film-maker and Director of “Todo Cine” on Canal 13 Cable in Chile, said about the Traditional Knowledge project: “There is a lot going on. One day we are looking at Mapuche medicines in the national museum and the next day we are shooting interviews of local leaders and international lawyers working through the legal issues that Traditional Knowledge brings. It is part research, part social activism, and part project management incubation. I love Chile because you can make a change here and see it happen.”
