Help Us Fund the Axenon Ikanwe Radio Team!

Help us fund the Axenon Ikanwe grass-roots radio initiative so that they can continue to keep Shipibo-Konibo communities informed and healthy!

Axenon Ikanwe (let’s learn together) is a grass-roots indigenous radio group led by, and created for, Shipibo-Konibos of the Peruvian Amazon and diasporic populations. This radio initiative was founded in 2017 by Shipibo members: Inin Yoi, Metsa Jisbe and Ranin Koshi, with the aim to revitalize and maintain the use of the Shipibo language among Shipibo peoples. Shipibo peoples have been experiencing a quick language shift to Spanish due to the economic and social benefits that speaking this language can provide (e.g. obtaining a job, accessing higher education). However, speaking the Shipibo language is crucial for maintaining indigenous knowledge, cultural identity and a sense of belonging and deep history. Inin Yoi, Metsa Jisbe and Ranin Koshi understood the urgent need for creating spaces in which the Shipibo language was spoken, thus, the Axenon Iknawe radio initiative was born.

 

This radio show runs every weekday from 8pm to 9pm and it promotes language and cultural revitalization and revalorization among the Shipibo-Konibo Nation through the nearly exclusive use of the Shipibo language. The Axenon Ikanwe radio show was quickly welcomed by Shipibo-Konibos and this year of 2021, it became officially ranked the #1 most listened to program across all generations of the Shipibo-Konibo Nation as well as setting new records for online streaming reproductions.

Axenon Ikanwe has become a prominent news outlet for Shipibo-Konibos. In their one-hour daily show, Inin Yoi, Metsa Jisbe and Ranin Koshi cover a variety of topics from indiginous issues, national events and politics, and local and national entertainment (e.g. sport news, local gatherings). While all national news outlets communicate the news in Spanish targeting populations in the Capital, the Axenon Ikanwe team research, compile and communicate relevant daily news in the Shipibo language targeting Shipibo peoples in the entire Ucayali region and other Amazonian regions. Thus, the Axenon Ikanwe team plays an invaluable role in keeping Shipibo indigenous people informed. In doing this, the Axenon Ikanwe team has been able to organize their community, unite them and instigate senses of care for indigenous matters such as exercising indigenous and human rights, caring for environmental disruptions and promoting a better life for indigenous communities.

 

COVID-19 IMPACT AND ROLE

 

Indigenous communities in Peru have been hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Shipibo peoples have experienced an even higher disruption to their families and livelihoods which threaten the survival of this community. Shipibos have lost their parents, grandparents and other family members and friends, as well as jobs and economic opportunities. The COVID-19 has brought a period of grief for this community from which they are trying to recover.

 

Axenon Ikanwe has played a crucial role in keeping Shipibo-Konibo community members safe since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The radio team kept communicating all relevant research and information produced in Spanish, in Shipibo for their fellow members to fully comprehend the scale and dangers of the COVID-19 virus. Despite losing mothers and very loved family members to COVID-19, the radio team did not stop their broadcasting and consistently stressed the use of face-masks, social distancing and all other sanitary precautions for their community to keep healthy. Today, while the vaccination rate for indigenous populations in Peru is low, the radio team is working to persuade their Shipibo fellow members to become vaccinated as vaccines become more widely available. See this Peruvian Ministry of Culture's post thanking Axenon Ikanwe for their role during the pandemic:
https://twitter.com/minculturape/status/1428476203925704711

WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT TO CONTINUE AND EXPAND OUR WORK

 

HELP US RAISE FUNDS TO SECURE THAT THE AXENON IKANWE SHOW CONTINUES THEIR DAILY BROADCASTING. Your donations will go a long way in making sure that the Shipibo-Konibo Nation remains informed, safe and united around issues that directly affect them. With these funds, the Axenon Ikanwe team will be able to secure their radio slot at the local radio station, they will be able to travel to the different Shipibo-Konibo communities to listen and report news from these often forgotten settlements, to acquire and access necessary materials to do news research and always provide accurate information as well as acquiring equipment to create a YouTube channel in which news clips can be stored and reproduced anytime.

 

Funding goal: $5,000 USD

 

ABOUT SHIPIBO-KONIBOS

 

Shipibo-Konibos are an idigenous society of the Peruvian Amazon. They have been living in this territory for hundreds of years before the arrival of Spaniard colonialists in Peru. The Shipibo-Konibo Nation comprises 150 settlements across the Amazon region (mainly around the Ucayali River Basin) and more recently a large settlement in the Peruvian capital, Lima. Shipibo peoples constitute the third largest indigenous group in the Amazonian region of Peru and the fifth largest of all Indigenous groups in Peru. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic the Shipibo-Konibo Nation was reported to have a population of over 34,000 people. It is yet uncertain what the population count is now. Most Shipibo-Konibos speak the Shipibo language while many youth and young adults report being more comfortable speaking Spanish. These generations can be best described as ‘passive bilinguals’ as they can understand most of the language when hearing it but do not have command of the language (Basham & Fathman, 2008; Best, 2019). In 2012, the Endangered Language Project and Ethnologue described the Shipibo language as “vulnerable.” The Axenon Ikanwe team has become a crucial institution that encourages Shipibo speakership and the revalorization of Shipibo culture.