Creation of knowledge from indigenous knowledge

Viviana is not indigenous. She has white skin and light eyes. She has dedicated her life to two passions: education and literature. A few years ago she started working at the Clemencia González intercultural bilingual Mbya Guaraní center in Iguazu, province of Misiones-Argentina. She says that since she started working there she has never taught a class in the same way again. Understanding education from diversity opened her parameters in the best way. Her focus is on interculturality.

Reflecting on the relationship between education and the indigenous has generated a lot of space for the creation of knowledge about the need to understand education beyond the classroom. The understanding of a culture towards the generation of mutual knowledge with no other ambition than the benefit of the communities has been a route that it has been traveling for many years. Many times from the unlearning of the western way of facing the classroom to go less "contaminated" to that sacred space. Changing the paradigm that the teacher is the one who understands the world or the "everything" if not entering there with the humility to share the diverse knowledge of those who gather there. This has been a turning point in his life. 

Sharing dreams with indigenous communities makes her enter into each of the communities she works with, not as an anthropologist looking in from the outside, but on the contrary, trying to look at herself in her diversity but inward. From there Viviana has been able to develop an endless number of processes that also link indigenous knowledge to community tourism practices so that visitors can learn more about this worldview and at the same time generate income for the community that lives in constant poverty and forgotten by local and national authorities in the middle of one of the most tourist destinations in Argentina: the Iguazu Falls. 

Viviana, who knows the language and the western ways, has also become a manager of the community, she is in charge of managing international cooperation projects that for some years now have believed in the project and also through her and her husband VSocial Foundation has been able to support this project with the firm belief that there are processes that seek the autonomy of indigenous communities, recognizes their knowledge and has designed attractive experiences for tourists that make their visit to Iguazu not only for the natural wonder but also because behind it there is a community for which this territory means much more and they consider it sacred. Understanding the context is precisely the invitation that Viviana constantly makes so that these communities are not forgotten and are not displaced by tourism and large hotels that only buy their handicrafts. The dream of the community and clearly of Viviana is that these communities become the managers of their development and of what happens there in their territory. It is to ensure that all the benefits that this natural destination attracts also benefit them. This is a constant task of both Viviana and VSocial.