SUMMARY
Inti Raymi Fund visited Bolivia and provided financial support to the Indigenous Tiwanaku Peoples living in the arid desolate highlands of Bolivia. This support allowed their community to purchase materials and construct individual greenhouses for each member of this community. Additionally, the community purchased and set up a complete computer center which everyone in the community uses.
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“We all need to wake up and change the paradigm in the world today… we’ve confused the pursuit of happiness with a pursuit of things. In America, we’re taught to look upstream to see who has more things, better things. My hope is to help people to look downstream and pull others up.” — Chimu
TIWANAKU PEOPLES OF BOLIVIA
Located near the southern shores of Lake Titicaca in western Bolivia, South America, exists the city of Tiwanaku (also spelled Tiahuanaco) with a Pre-Columbian archaeological site and was the capital of a powerful pre-Inca civilization that dominated the Andean region between 500 and 1050 AD. The monumental remains of this great culture include several temples, a pyramid, symbolic gates, monoliths and mysterious carvings of gods gone by. Arriving later, the Incas regarded Tiwanaku as the site of creation by their god Viracocha, "who rose from the depths of Lake Titicaca". It was the capital of an empire that extended into present-day Peru and Chile, flourishing from AD 500 to 1050.
Tiwanaku is recognized by Andean scholars as one of the most important civilizations prior to the Inca Empire; it was the administrative capital of a major state power for approximately five hundred years. The ruins of the ancient city state are near the south-eastern shore of Lake Titicaca in Tiwanaku Municipality, Ingavi Province, La Paz Department, about 72 km (45 mi) west of La Paz and are a popular tourist attraction. Today, the Tiwanaku Peoples of Bolivia identify themselves as Aymara Peoples.
WHAT THE INTI RAYMI FUND PROVIDED FOR CASA ACHUTE
Tiwanaku Casa Achute is situated high up in the harsh, arid Andean Mountains of Bolivia at over 4,000m elevation. This extreme and harsh location, which the Aymara People call home, is a result of a mass exodus from the Conquistador’s Invasion in the early 1500’s. Sustaining agriculture (mostly potatoes) and livestock here is a constant struggle with cold arid weather, ugh elevation affecting plant crops and UV radiation 3-4X sea level. In light of this, and at the request of the community, the Inti Raymi Fund provided $25,000USD funding for a new modern equipped computer center and approximately 95 greenhouses for their community of Casa Achute, Tiwanaku, Bolivia. The Inti Raymi Fund has visited the areas of Tiwanaku, Bolivia roughly 5 times over the past 5 years as of the date of this project. Having established a relationship with a number of the locals, and guides there, we discovered this smaller rural community of Casa Achute behind the township and ruins of Tiwanaku.
After our presentation and offer to the community of "What do you need and how can we help?" and after several months of contemplation on their part, the residents of Casa Achute opted for two projects with their $25,000 Grant. They decided to allocate roughly $5,000 towards a computer learning center. These computers allowed them to gain knowledge, especially agricultural information so vital in helping them sustain themselves and to provide education, news and the awareness necessary for survival in modern times.
Casa Achute, with its less visible location behind the ruins of Tiwanaku, a popular tourist destination, had been unable to attract any of the tourist trade as had its better situated neighbor. To remedy this and gain another much needed source of income for the village, the residents plan to create a web site geared to attracting the eco-tourism and anthropological tourism business, which they so far have been unable to do, given their location and limited access to promotional tools.
With the remaining $20,000 of funds, they constructed approximately 95 smaller greenhouses which they use to harvest a wide range of agricultural products providing a healthier diet and life for the residents of the village. These Greenhouses help mitigate the difficulties they encounter farming in such unforgiving terrain and altitude and provide them a much needed variety to their main crop, potato, which offers very minimal nutritional value.
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