An update from Health In Harmony’s Brazil team

Meet forest guardian Lúcia Xipaya. Born in Joa, near the town of Altamira in the Xingu basin in the Amazon, Lúcia’s belief and work centers around protecting Indigenous traditions to pass down to future generations, as well as protecting the forest that makes these traditions possible. 

On a recent to Kaarimã Village, the Health In Harmony team was privileged to be shown around by Dona Lúcia, as well as shown her craft techniques.

For Lúcia, “healing comes through the forest, and each plant has healing power”. Using elements from the forest, Lucia produces anti-inflammatory ointments, soaps, and aromatic candles with oils and ingredients such as andiroba, copaíba, coffee, lavender essence, chestnut hedgehog and sapucaia. 

Alongside the Juma Institute and SAMA Health In Harmony, Lúcia is cataloging species that hold medicinal properties as part of wider efforts to strengthen traditional medicine in the Kaarimã Village. As she told Health In Harmony:

“The Indigenous woman is a warrior who protects and fights together with her people with her head held high to strengthen her culture and protect the land where she lives. She fights with an inexplicable strength that does not allow her love for nature to weaken. This love is within every Indigenous woman who defends and protects her people in the Amazon.”

Lúcia Xipaya