In 2008,
we developed further our activities in Sucre, Bolivia. We started working with
another local organization called Ayni. Ayni is close to Nanta with whom we have
been collaborating for several years and whose project is children oriented
education.
Ayni’s
project is also children education through artistic activities, in particular
painting. Their activities take place in the surroundings of Sucre in 4
libraries located in the districts of Mesa Verde, Sica Sica, Urkupiña and Villa
Armonia.
Ayni is a Quechua and Aymara word; these two languages are pre-Columbian
languages still spoken nowadays in Bolivia where they are official languages.
The word
Ayni is difficult to translate as the western conception of the world differs
strongly from the Andean conception that conceives the world as a whole or as a
unity organized into cycles and whose different constituents, whether they are
human beings or objects, are constantly interacting with each other.
The word
Ayni is close to the concept of « exchanging »: a world in which the good things
I do will come back to me later in a way or the other, i.e. “what I do for you
today, tomorrow you’ll do it for me”
