Support Indigenous Communities
In the Spirit of Reciprocity
UFGD Indigenous University
Supporting Indigenous Agriculture
The UFGD University (Federal University of Grande Dourados) in Mato Grosso do Sul offers agricultural courses to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, focusing on traditional, sustainable crops and techniques. During our filming in Dourados, we visited this remarkable campus with its extensive hands-on teaching garden and met with faculty and students.
Our previous film, The Wisdom of Trauma was acquired by a Brazilian streaming channel, and we donated the full $5,000 royalties to support Indigenous students. This funding enabled them to return to their villages and plant traditional fruit trees that they had cultivated from seed to sapling at the university.
The project has been highly successful in restoring traditional crops to an area severely impacted by deforestation, monoculture farming, and the world’s highest per-capita pesticide use.
We plan to expand this initiative to:
- Support more Indigenous students in bringing traditional agricultural practices back to their communities
- Restore additional lands to traditional crop cultivation
- Create sustainable alternatives to harmful agricultural practices that have devastated the region
By combining academic knowledge with traditional practices, we’re helping to rebuild food sovereignty and ecological balance in this critical region.
