Naku Experience

Naku is an indigenous organization created by the Sapara people of the Ecuadorian Amazon that serves to protect, preserve, and share the ancient wisdom of the Sapara. NAKU Clinic, located deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, is a non-profit healing center founded by the Sapara people, dedicated to the research and practice of indigenous Amazonian medicine. The Sapara have lived in what is now the Ecuadorian Amazon for millennia. During that time, they have developed an inseparable relationship with the land, harnessing the power of medicinal plants to cure illness.

Right now however, the destruction of the rainforest by resource exploitation has endangered the Sapara and their medicinal wisdom so that now only 500 Sapara remain. Though their population is dwindling, their territory is vast and a critical part of the Amazonian ecosystem. In response to the many threats they face, the Sapara established NAKU to preserve and share their vast knowledge of medicinal plants with the rest of the world before it is lost.

The Sapara understand that both human illness and the mounting degradation of our environment are inextricably linked, sharing the same root cause. By assisting the community with the designing and construction of NAKU, we as VIVA are joining the Sapara people in their efforts to protect pristine rainforest essential to the vitality of our planet, the front lines of the fight against climate change.