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JOIN OUR FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT TO WATER
The Chocó is a forest that crosses the Pacific coast, from Panama to Ecuador. In the province of Esmeraldas, Black communities and indigenous communities coexist. In 2010, the communities of La Chiquita and Guadualito joined together to file the first constitutional lawsuit in the world for violation of the Rights of Nature and Good Living. Although we legally won the lawsuit, to this day reparations have not been made and our water continues to be contaminated.
This documentary film is a collective effort that tells our stories, those of the Awá Indigenous people and the Black peoples of the Chocó Forest. It is our story and also the story of those who are no longer here.
They polluted our lifestyle, they polluted our water, they polluted our well-being. We have lost the quality of our food, and now we have to go to the city of San Lorenzo, we have to buy what living nature used to provide us. What we really need is our water.
We long nostalgically for our river. Something has rumbled in us, something lost has been reborn, something we had practically forgotten. These images are the result of an intense work of collective creation-research and memory. We met to reflect together on the contamination of our water, to create a message that contributes to a more just society, more empathetic to the struggles of different peoples, based on memory, respect and the right to a dignified life for all people.
Camera in hand, this is a diary of plural landscapes, of knowledge and ancestral activities that have been disturbed. Our ancestors came to these territories of Esmeraldas in search of freedom and settled in this area where we live, now the companies have arrived to exploit our territory. We demand that the palm companies, Los Andes and Palesema, return our clean water and pay for the damages. We demand justice from the Ecuadorian State, which has forgotten our communities.
We are young people. We are children, we are daughters and sons, we are sisters and brothers. We are indigenous and we are black. We are activists, we are social transformers, we are leaders, we are survivors and we are liberating these rivers. We are liberating ourselves for the life of all beings in the province of Esmeraldas.
But we cannot do it alone. We have been fighting for twenty years so far and we are still at it. We need allies. We need your support. Please join us and contribute to our fight for the right to water.