History

The “Asociación de Defensa y Desarrollo de las Comunidades Andinas del Perú” (ADECAP) in English, “Association for the Defense and Development of the Andean Communities of Peru” was founded november 23rd and 24th 1985 and officially registered on 10 august 1987.

ADECAP was founded in plenary meetings of the quechuaspeaking communities in response to the need to fight against hunger, economic poverty and cultural marginalization, as furthermore to defend our human rights. Materialized as an institution, we want to realize the desire of communities to a sustainable and independent development.

As an organization ADECAP is run by the andean communities theirselves.

In the 30 years of our history, we strengthened our cultural identity through our work for those without property, for the right to health, intercultural, bilingual education, comunal, collective property, environmental health, sustainable, ecological agriculture and the empowerment of indigenous women.

In this process:

• We are working for a climate of peace and understanding
• We established a certain structure for the collaborative organization, overruled and held by the communities, that put in the Board of Directors, elected in general assemblies every two years. The Board is responsible for the realization and implementation of all projects, agreed in the assemblies.
• We encouraged local and regional structures, and we based our decisions on the will of the communities participating in our union.
• Our main workingsubjects are: Health, women’s rights and women, education, economy (agricultural production), legal assistance and defense and others
• We worked and are working to defend human rights of indigenous andean people, defending them from poitical violance and injustice prosecution from landholders
• We advertise and promote the ecological, sustainable agriculture, which offers, in contrast to conventional agriculture, solutions to extreme poverty, hunger and malnutrition. In addition we prevent a deterioration of our natural resources
• We fight for the restoration of the status of indigenous women and for gender equality
• We want to revive the indigenous medicine, working for the health of the child, the mother and a healthy living environment. These works are realized in cooperation with the Ministry of Health Tayacaja
• We want to improve the education of our children, having in mind the indigenous culture, working with bilingual and intercultural education. Wthese works are realized in cooperation with the Ministry of Education Tayacaja
• We install running water in the communities to help with cleaning and irrigation

Current situation of ADECAP

• Realizing the projects according to the resolution in the plenary sessions/ assemblies
• With our workingteam “health” we are supporting the physical wellbeing of the child and his mother, the family and the community.
• Our workers have installed running water in more than one hundred communities
• A workingteam is realizing projects in communities for indigenous rights and participation in politics at local, regional and national level
• An in environmental, sustainable agriculture trained team is working for secure food supply
• There are several Andean, indigenous women’s organizations (OMIKs) working for a better status of women and demand the equality of the sexes
• We work for intercultural, bilingual education, geared towards the indigenous quechua language and culture, as an alternative to traditional public education.
• We constantly develop new projects for the sustainable development of our communities
• We coordinate and work with local politics and administration