Shirts, pants and backpacks hang from wooden beams in a large room full of old bunk beds in which students from a particular educational center sleep in the heart of the Amazon of Peru. This residence and institute welcomes 248 adolescents of seven ethnic groups who seek to improve their future and, with it, that of their peoples.

The Yankuam Jintia high school (‘Luz en el camino’, in the indigenous language Achuar) is located in San Lorenzo, capital of the Datem del Marañón, and is an option for teenagers who do not have educational centers in their small indigenous communities.

It has teenagers from 12 to 18 years old of the shawi, condoshi, wampis, quechua, awajún, shapra and achuar ethnic groups, from 95 peoples, so the mixture of languages and cultures is breathed in the walls full of murals.

It houses realities of all kinds, from adolescents whose families have decided to give a better education for their children than their community can provide, to those who are orphans or have suffered abuse and did not have a safe home.

“We are always doing shifts so that they are not alone. We are always here with you at all times, they are small who come for the first year at 11 and 12 years old. They are very brave when leaving the family to come to study (…) They need the paternal warmth from us as mother and dad,” the director of the center, Sandra Elizabeth Flores, tells EFE.

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He explains to EFE in the courtyard that this place was born as a male boarding school at the initiative of the missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who saw 50 years ago the little access that young people in these areas had to education.

“It was seen that our young people didn’t adapt much. There was a little bit of discrimination, because they didn’t master Spanish. Then the students came sad,” says the director, adding that for this reason the boarding school also became an intercultural school that respected the various origins of adolescents.

She adds, proudly, that the center has also been open since 2016 for girls, who are now a little more than half of the total.

“We do a comprehensive job trying to ensure that the children are respected, that the original language is maintained and we are working with a culture of peace,” says Flores.

The residence has an area for girls and a boys’ area, with several rooms per age group, in which some students have their books, hygiene material and glossy shoes tidy, while others keep their muddy slippers next to their toothbrushes.

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“The reality in this educational institution, on the one hand, is fun, we share cultures, beliefs, experiences with each other and we make the union as a family, but we lack some basic needs since the institution does not have enough resources,” Jean, a 15-year-old young wampi, representative of the students and whose native community is two days away from the institute, tells EFE.

In the wooden bunk beds, there are no mattresses for some, and there are no pillows or mosquito nets for everyone.

“Like all young people, we also need to have fun and we want tools like balls and poles to go to represent school when we play soccer and be presentable,” he says before adding that he wants to get a scholarship to study Law.

The director shares her frustration by agreeing that the center lacks resources of all kinds, but that every year teenagers who want to enter are left out.

For many, the objective is to get one of the scholarships granted by the Government to students of high performance and scarce economic resources to pursue a university career, so the routine of the institute is focused on studies, which occupy mornings and afternoons.

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But Jean admits that there is no computer in the center, a need that has identified a project developed by Unicef and Adra at the Datem del Marañón, which seeks to protect children, adolescents and their access to health services.

“We have worked with them on the issue of communication, their skills and strategies so that they can be able to easily develop, lose their shyness in front of the public when they express themselves or when they want to talk,” says the project coordinator, Lady Mondragón.

They also promoted the creation of ‘spots’ with messages alluding to health care that they have elaborated in the dialects of their native peoples, something that is not usually common since they are usually disseminated in Spanish.

He adds that, through this initiative, they have known the importance of promoting health in their communities, where they will then share them, which also helps to give a voice to these adolescents who live in a rich interculturality.

A project that gives communities a future of a present and a future that emanates from their adolescents.

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