PROPOSALS

Proposals through which ERA Onlus is carrying on its contribute are methodological as well as propositive.

Italian Cooperation, thanks to the role that our nation will be playing within the Security Council of the United Nations from the year 2007, could increase the local development leaving aside the universal policies of development. This kind of task is matter first of all NGOs and ONLUS. It is not correct to make distinctions among poor people. However, we can not forget all those persons who are living in the worst condition and who need a more safeguard even in the cultural environment. 

This is the reason why we must focus our attention mostly on those people who give a lot of importance to the natural context and who live preserving their native environment just like indigenous peoples do.

Therefore, a first step changing could be done by giving more importance to the cultural field within the basical education in order to reetablish the relation between environment and indigenous peoples.

For this purpose we need to put in the spotlight the issues discussed during the world congress of the United Nations on the environment and development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, where, for the first time, the expression “sustainable development” was used in particular related to the indigenous peoples.

Methodology: a) the traditional method of alphabetization is based on the idea of “learning” concepts that who learns don’t know.

We instead believe that the way in which the “scholastic meeting” it must happen with a precise method, "method of literacy of Paulo Freire". The base is that nobody educates nobody and education is collective action. The nucleus of literacy is not neutral: who creates the topic through the word directs the thought of the persons risking to guide of the conscience. The role of the educator is searching the most useful news, phonetics and thematic, in regard to the place in which he will carry out his task. This must be one essential and primary step of the choice of the modality. The educator, "holder of a method" must find the social truth that will be given to the written word and he will have the task to translate it. The search of the words is a creative search of places and traditions. The dialogue is a collective discovery of the diversity embedded in shared life. These are valid bases for the promotion of a method of school in which there is a comparison of the diversity (inner or external to the class) and in which is given the same space to the two languages chosen in that specific context. The relationship between the educator and the educated one is neutral. Imposing a methodology does not mean to impose guidelines that they are not absolutely applicable tout court but they need thematic for preservation. Every place has its topics and its local words that however differ also in the sounds and in the meaning; b) frontal lessons in order to be able the comparative nature of the encounter between local and national cultures, languages and traditions and to stick out a primary literacy that can offer the instruments for successive cognitive activity. The choice of teachers must be selective and careful. Teachers must be or mothertongue, that even if they live in a national context, they boast and recognize their belongings to the indigenous group or "sensitive teachers" to the issue of linguistic, intellectual and cultural preservation.

Effectly: to) creating Italian Commission for Indigenous People, which refers to the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs and in particular to the offices of the Cooperation for  Development it is necessary so that government supports and coordinates political the indigenous collectivities.

A Commission composed from two or three members, specialists in indigenous issues of different geographic areas and experts of the activities of international organisms (we have detected Prof. Maurizio Gnerre, Prof. Dario Novellino, Prof. Sandro Triulzi).

A specialistic approach will allow our government to act in aware way. The Commission will be able in fact to interact with the international organizations that are keen on the indigenous issues (the WGIP, Working Group on Indigenous Populations; the UNPFII, United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues; SottoCommissione on the Minorities, the UNPO, Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization) and all those not government organizations that, on behalf of Italy, operate directly in the zones involved in the problematic ones dealt.

An institution of direct advice and above all composed by persons selected and known in the academic area for their active job of surveying on the field and also for their important publications.