One of the benefits of the CWS-supported Chaco Initiative
at the Suararito Cooperative community in Bolivia -- new housing. The
old house is on the right, new house to the left. The old house is now
a kitchen.
Photo: Mary Catherine Hinds/CWS |
The indigenous peoples of the Gran Chaco region are spread across nearly 400,000 square miles of central South America, spanning parts of three countries: Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay. Longstanding racism, exclusion, and unsustainable development models have deprived them of their economic, social, and cultural rights, including the right to own lands they traditionally inhabited.
CWS and local partners have formed the Integrated Support Program for the Defense and Promotion of the Rights of Native Peoples from the Gran Chaco -- a coordinated effort to defend and promote the rights of the native peoples of Chaco.
Click on a thumbnail photo above for a vignette--a brief story and photo(s)--about individuals participating in this program to make a better life for themselves and their families.