[FINAL EVALUATION: EL PETRÓLEO
EN LA SELVA]
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
1
EVALUATION REPORT
The project “El petróleo en la selva” (“The oil in the rainforest”), 2012-2014 has been
financed by Operation Dagsværk (OD) and implemented by IBIS Denmark in collaboration
with FORMABIAP-AIDESEP (Programa de Formación de Maestros Bilingües de la
Amazonía Peruana de la Asociación Interétnica de la Selva Peruana) and FECONACO
(Federación de Comunidades Nativas del Corrientes)
Catherine Watson
External evaluator
Formación de Maestros Bilingues de la Amazonía Peruana
Federación de Comunidades Nativas del Corrientes
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
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Contents
Introduction to the project page 3
Summary of Terms of Reference for the Final Evaluation page 4
Method of evaluation page 5
Project Component 1 page 6
Quantitative results page 6
Qualitative results page 10
Project Component 2 page 24
Quantitative results page 24
Qualitative results page 25
Collaboration between the institutions involved in the project page 32
Sustainability of the project’s work and results page 32
Acknowledgements page 33
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
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Introduction to the project
The project “El Petróleo en la Selva” ran from January 1st, 2012 until December 31st, 2014,
with a budget of DKK 5,735,347. Its primary objective was to ensure that children and young
people from the indigenous villages of the Río Corrientes river basin of the north-eastern
Peruvian rainforest receive a relevant, high-quality school education. In the specific context
of this region, this means an education that qualifies young people to confront and
overcome the environmental destruction and social destructuring that the oil industry has
caused in their communities, and gives them the competences necessary to ensure their
own future and that of the natural resources that still remain in their territories.
Río Corrientes, in the district of Trompeteros in Loreto Region, presents a complex context
in which to implement a project of this kind. The area is isolated in several distinct senses.
Firstly, it is geographically remote, deep in the rainforest and, for the vast majority of
people, accessible only by river. Secondly, it has been neglected by the Peruvian state,
which has a very limited presence. Thirdly, there has been little project support from non-
governmental institutions, which means that the present project has had a pioneering role.
The river basin has for more than 40 years been exposed to pollution caused by the
presence and extractive activities of oil companies whose operations overlap indigenous
territories. This has had serious environmental, social and health consequences for the
communities along the river. For example, both oil leaks and the chemicals used in the
extraction of the oil have caused air, ground and water pollution along the entire river,
resulting in the contamination of the food and water supplies on which local people are
totally dependent. Their continued consumption of these has led to the emergence of
diseases associated with, among other things, high levels of heavy metals such as lead and
mercury in the blood. Furthermore, the oil companies are a source of work opportunities for
(especially) the men of the region. When they travel for work for weeks at a time (e.g. to the
district centre of Trompeteros), they neglect their family and community responsibilities at
home and the money they earn often brings with it problems of, for example, alcoholism in
their home communities.
The point of departure for the project’s work with environmental and human rights
education in Río Corrientes is the Dorissa Accord of 2006. This is an agreement involving the
Peruvian government, the Argentinian Pluspetrol oil company and the indigenous people of
the northern Peruvian Amazon represented by FECONACO (Federación de Comunidades
Nativas del Corrientes). It came into being as a result of protests the previous year, which
included the occupation of an oil drilling platform, against the irresponsible pollution of the
river as part of the process of extracting oil.
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The project, implemented in the 36 indigenous Achuar, Kichwa and Urarina communities of
the Río Corrientes, therefore aimed to raise the awareness of the local population of the
existence of and consequences of this pollution. Furthermore, it strived to strengthen their
capacity both to manage their local environment and to demand the fulfilment of their
rights in relation to the wider pollution caused by the oil companies and of the
commitments granted by the Dorissa Accord.
Project activities were divided into two components in order to fulfil these goals:
1. An education component with its starting point in the schools of Río Corrientes, for
which FORMABIAP (Programme for the education of bilingual teachers in the
Peruvian Amazon) was mainly responsible. This involved the in-service training of
teachers, the production of teaching materials and the support of teaching and
learning processes that incorporated an environmental focus within a bilingual and
intercultural education.
2. A capacity-building and advocacy component with its starting point in the
community, for which FECONACO (Federation of indigenous peoples of the Río
Corrientes) was mainly responsible. The principal activity of this component was the
capacity building of young people, village authorities and parents in the fields of local
environmental management and response to the threats presented by the work of
the oil companies.
For a full description of project goals, results and activities, see the project document in
Annex 1a (Spanish) and 1b (Danish).
Summary of Terms of Reference for the Final Evaluation
The final external evaluation of the project “El petróleo en la selva” had four main
objectives:
To analyse the relevance of the project’s strategic and methodological approach,
identifying achievements, results, problems and challenges;
To analyse whether and in what ways the results of the project have had the
intended effect on and the desired benefits for the target population;
To analyse and evaluate the sustainability of the project;
To analyse the cooperation between FORMABIAP, FECONACO and IBIS at both
programme and administrative levels.
In relation to component 1, this involved an evaluation of the impact of the project in the
river communities, for example the participation of parents in education activities and the
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cooperation between school and community, of the impact of the capacity building of
teachers, and of the extent and impact of the advocacy that FORMABIAP carried out.
In relation to component 2, this involved investigating the impact of the capacity building of
environmental monitors and human rights campaigners (see p x below), with a particular
focus on the participation of young people and women, the effect of the capacity-building
on villagers and the impact that they have in their communities, and the impact of the
advocacy that FECONACO carried out.
For the full terms of reference for the final evaluation, see Annex 2.
Method of evaluation
The investigation required for the production of the final evaluation took place over a
period of three weeks in November/December 2014 during the final weeks of the project
period. It involved a series of observation and interview sessions in four communities in the
region covered by the project: one Kichwa, one Urarina and two Achuar. In addition to this
field investigation of two weeks, there were a few days both before and after the journey
for conversations with the overall project coordinator and other project employees in
Iquitos.
In total, 13 school classes at pre-school, primary and secondary levels were observed across
all four communities, with a particular focus on: the themes chosen for the classes; the
teaching methods and materials used; and the roles played by the teacher and students
(including the participation of girls). There were interviews with 11 teachers (also at all three
levels), two groups of students, village authorities and representatives of parents from all
four communities, the four education monitors from project component 1, the coordinators
of project components 1 and 2, and the overall project coordinator. Plans to observe a
capacity-building workshop for the human rights campaigners and interview some of the
participants unfortunately had to be abandoned when the workshop was postponed.
For a full plan of the three-week visit to Iquitos and the project region, see Annex 3.
The six-monthly internal project reports produced by the project’s IBIS coordinator were
also used as sources of information for this evaluation.
A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches was chosen in order to
demonstrate both the objective completion of specific activities programmed by the project
and the more personal, subjective experiences of these activities and their impact from the
points of view of various participants in and potential beneficiaries of project activities.
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Project component 1
Quantitative results
1. Teachers who have received capacity building and pedagogical support in the project’s
education networks
The table below, using statistics gathered by the project, illustrates the numbers of
teachers at pre-school (inicial), primary (primaria) and secondary (secundaria) levels who
benefitted from the activities of the project over its three years of activity. It is evident
that, especially in 2014, the third year of the project, there was a considerable increase.
It is important to note when recording the numbers of teachers who have received
training that the Peruvian rotation system of contracting teachers means that, in most
schools, many and often the majority of teachers change each year. Although the
project’s professional development of teachers lasted three years, many of the teachers
observed and interviewed had taken part for only one or two years.
2. Local authorities who have participated in the project’s capacity building
Local authorities did not attend FORMBIAP’s capacity building workshops, but they
attended community meetings (asambleas) at which activity plans and results, and the
rights and duties of project participants were discussed. A minimum of two
representatives of local authorities attended each meeting.
22
62
21
105
22
62
21
105
34
71
24
129
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
INICIAL PRIMARIA SECUNDARIA Total
POBLACIÓN DE DOCENTES BENEFICIADOS EN CADA AÑO POR EL PROYECTO
2012 2013 2014
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3. Children and young people who attend school
Pupils of school attendance age are registered automatically in the official education
system and their names therefore appear on the lists that teachers receive at the start of
each school year. However, these lists do not necessarily accurately reflect the actual
continued residence of the children and young people concerned in the relevant
community nor their attendance at community schools.
Real attendance can often be considerably less than the numbers on official lists. In the
classes observed during the investigation, there were in some cases only between half
and two-thirds of registered pupils present.
Teachers often explained this discrepancy between official numbers and real attendance
with the situation that parents either took their children with them when they went
hunting, fishing or to other forms of work outside the community instead of sending
them to school, or did not insist on their children attending school if the children
preferred to do something else. This was attributed to lack of awareness on the part of
parents of the importance of education for their children’s and the community’s future.
Many children also miss school, sometimes for long periods, because of illness; malaria,
dengue, respiratory illnesses and diarrhoea, for example, are all common in the region
and affect large numbers of children.
However, both the project’s overall coordinator and the coordinator of component 1 saw
an improvement in school attendance over the project period. They attribute this to a
gradually increasing parental awareness of the importance of a school education.
Official figures for the numbers of pupils who benefitted from the project’s activities in
2012, 2013 and 2014 at pre-school (inicial), primary (primaria) and secondary
(secundaria) levels are shown in the table below. There has been a steady increase at all
three levels over the three years that the project was active.
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Regarding the gender distribution of children and young people who attend school, the
investigation revealed a very even balance between male and female pupils at primary
level. The picture was generally, although not exclusively, very different in secondary
school classes. Here, there was a tendency, though much more evident in the upper river
basin than in the lower, for boys to outnumber girls by as much as six to one. According
to both teachers and the project coordinators, this imbalance stems from a fear on the
part of parents that girls will fall in love, get pregnant and/or run away with a boy if they
attend secondary school. This fear is even more pronounced if girls have to travel to
another community in cases where their own does not have a secondary school.
The overall project coordinator and the coordinator of component 1 both stated that
there is now generally a greater interest in attending secondary school, especially from
girls, and also from older women who want to return to school to complete their studies.
This could be due to the influence of the project or to other factors such as opportunities
for scholarships to study in Iquitos and Lima, for example the ‘Beca 18’ is a scholarship
programme for young people from low-income families that the Peruvian government
launched in 2014.
4. Teaching materials produced by the project
The planned teaching materials play an important role in underpinning the project’s
pedagogical principles and in providing teachers, parents, community authorities and
other interested parties with a permanent record of these principles, making it possible
for others to become acquainted with and apply them at a later time. As such, they are
an essential element in the pedagogical sustainability of the project.
36
8
15
21
27
9
21
68
52
7
16
11
28
8
24
26
80
6
16
28
33
6
27
70
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
INICIAL PRIMARIA SECUNDARIA Total
POBLACIÓN DE ESTUDIANTES BENEFICIADOS EN CADA AÑO POR EL PROYECTO
2012 2013 2014
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Originally, the aim was for all materials to be completed at an early stage in the project
period in order for them to form an integrated part of the pedagogical support provided.
However, various logistical challenges, such as the need for the materials to be checked
in different local languages, have delayed this process.
The following materials have been produced:
Annual issues of the project magazine ‘Ikianchim’
Re-publication of existing materials that were relevant for the project’s goals and
methodology
The following materials were in December 2014 at different stages in the process of
publication and were all expected to be published in January 2014:
Environmental teaching materials – ‘Aportes para el enfoque ambiental en la
educación’ – the first draft of which was finished in December 2014
Pre-school workbook in Achuar (in print)
Teachers’ guide to pre-school workbook in Achuar (in print)
Reading and writing book for primary year one – in Urarina (in print) and in
Kichwa and Achuar (in earlier stages of the production process)
Reading book for primary school in Urarina (currently in draft form)
According to the Overall Project Coordinator and the Coordinator for Component 1,
project resources have been set aside to deliver the published materials to the project
communities in Río Corrientes. Their expectation is that teachers will be able to apply the
materials independently because they already know both the relevant languages and the
project methodology. Given both the rotation system of employment and the support
that existing teachers have apparently needed from monitors in their planning processes
(see other sections of this report), this expectation is possibly rather optimistic.
The writing and publishing of teaching materials is a very time-consuming, specialised
task. Perhaps this project’s materials could have been produced more quickly if a group
of people with the relevant qualifications (preferably bilingual teachers with experience
of work in Río Corrientes) had been trained both in the project’s methodology AND in the
skills of writing teaching materials, and had dedicated a period of time exclusively to this
work. It was possibly an unrealistic to plan to produce so much teaching material with
the level of resources allocated.
The situation described above obviously means that, at the moment of writing, the
project’s teaching materials were not directly being used in schools, although the content
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and methodology that the materials describe and make use of were to a certain extent
already being applied (see qualitative evaluation below of these aspects of the project).
A number of teachers stated in interviews that they had received teaching materials from
the project. On closer questioning, these turned out to be materials from the Ministry of
Education that were distributed by members of the project team after a course with
DIGEIBIR (Dirección General de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe Rural – the Ministry of
Education’s department for bilingual intercultural education), and already-existing
materials produced by, for example, FORMABIAP, that were reprinted and distributed
because of their relevance to the project’s content and/or methodology. The distribution
of these materials demonstrates both coordination between different projects and the
successful collaboration that was established with the Ministry of Education.
5. Meetings between FORMABIAP and education authorities
FORMABIAP had two or three meetings per year with local education authorities (UGEL)
at which project plans and results were presented and discussed. However, it should be
noted that the UGEL, during the project period, experienced constant changes in
management due to political turbulence, the effect of which was both that the project
had to be presented from scratch at each meeting and that the UGEL as an institution
does not have a thorough knowledge of the project’s aims, activities and achievements.
However, the UGEL was formally involved in the project in the sense that it contracted
teachers for the Río Corrientes river basin, it sent official invitations to the project’s
capacity building sessions to all teachers in the area and it facilitated (in collaboration
with FECONACO) the entry of project staff into Río Corrientes.
Qualitative results
1. Teaching in project schools: content, methodology and materials
By way of introduction to the evaluation of teaching that has taken place and is taking place
in schools in the project zone, two aspects in particular are interesting. One is the project
structure around the four education monitors’ work with teachers and the other is the issue
of classroom management in teachers’ work in the schools in the Río Corrientes river basin.
(1) Each of the four education monitors was responsible for two of the eight networks into
which the 36 project communities were divided. They spent long periods of time (a
week or more) in each of the communities, several times a year, where their principal
task was to support teachers in the planning and implementation of their teaching. This
was done partly at institutional level, where monitors assisted with, for example, the
school’s annual plan of work or the longer-term municipal education plan. However, it
mostly involved collaborating with teachers around their work inside and outside the
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classroom, helping them plan, observing their teaching, evaluating their work with
them, in some cases facilitating group reflection and planning with several teachers,
and helping them create improved plans for future lessons.
This way of working with teacher professional development corresponds well to current
international thinking in the field, which recommends school-based or on-site training
and reflection that takes its starting point in the context in which teachers work. In
school-based training, as opposed to more traditional training courses, any theories
introduced are related directly to this context instead of being imposed in isolation
from outside. Given the very specific cultural, environmental and industrial context that
the project ‘El petróleo en la selva’ operated in, this was probably very much the wisest
choice of approach.
In addition to the support they received from the education monitors, the teachers also
attended courses at which they were introduced to more general pedagogical
principles, e.g. at FORMBIAP in Iquitos, and on bilingual intercultural teaching with
DIGEIBIR.
(2) Classroom teaching in the communities varied enormously in content and style of
teaching, as one would expect in any school context. Some of the teaching was
excellent, some much less so, also as one would expect. However, of the many
observations that could be made, one factor appeared to be almost universal: the
challenge of classroom management. In many cases, the theme of the day appeared
relevant, both to the aims of the project and to the class age group concerned, and the
methodology was generally speaking fairly participatory. However, the lesson often
slowly unravelled from an engaging start that commanded the attention of most pupils
to long periods of passivity and lack of concentration, deteriorating behaviour and
attempts, usually unsuccessful, on the part of the teacher to revitalise the proceedings.
It appeared that there was a general problem related to the planning of teaching,
possibly arising from one of two sources: (1) a lack of or insufficient planning of classes,
something that was apparently common in some teachers, especially those without
formal qualifications; and/or (2) a misunderstanding of how to plan the implementation
of participatory activities. Such a misunderstanding could, for example, be an
assumption that once a group or other participatory activity was initiated, it would ‘take
care of itself’ in the sense that pupils would remember what to do, understand what to
do, collaborate willingly with each other, stick to the time plan and willingly present
their results afterwards.
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Issues of this kind are not related to the specific context of this project. They could arise
in almost any teaching context but they could nevertheless have a detrimental effect
on, for example, the success of bilingual teaching, or of school activities that take place
outside the classroom, which are elements of the pedagogical principles of this project.
A reasonable conclusion appears to be that the teachers in the project communities
need more support with classroom management in connection with the planning of
their teaching. Furthermore it is important in this context to remember that a
significant proportion of the teachers have not completed formal teacher training.
Attendance and attitude of teachers
The timely and regular attendance of teachers at their places of work in the communities
where they are employed should be a foregone conclusion. However, this is not the case in
Río Corrientes. It is an issue that can be related partly to external factors such as the
rotation system of teacher employment used by the Ministry of Education, and logistical
issues concerning the geographical isolation of many communities, and to more personal
factors such as the individual attitudes of the teachers themselves.
The project has attempted to influence external factors through advocacy – see the sections
below on advocacy for more details on this.
With regard to more individual teacher attitudes and motivations, the influence of the four
education monitors has undoubtedly been decisive. In all four of the communities visited by
the evaluation team, various participants emphasised their role. For instance, one
community leader mentioned the encouraging presence of the monitor. One of the
monitors herself described how, the first time she visited some of the communities in her
area, there were no teachers present despite the fact of them having been contracted.
However, once the teachers realised that the monitor could arrive unannounced at any
time, they felt obliged to spend more time at their schools.
The project has encouraged communities to take responsibility for monitoring the
attendance of teachers in order to make registration of and dealing with their presence and
absence more official and more sustainable. For example, one APAFA representative (parent
teacher association) explained how he registered the dates that teachers arrived in and left
the community, the dates they went on courses etc. According to IBIS’ internal project
report for January-June 2014, teachers in a number of communities now have to ask for
permission if they want or need leave from their work and that this has reduced
absenteeism. Several community leaders explained that they could now inform FECONACO
of teacher absenteeism or other misdemeanours, who could forward complaints to the
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UGEL (local education authorities). Unfortunately, however, it appears that the UGEL often
does not react to these approaches, ignoring requests to support or remove specific
teachers, and even sending problematic teachers back to the same communities the
following year despite clear issues.
Monitors pointed out that, for teachers working in an unfamiliar and perhaps unwelcoming
community far from home, the monitor was sometimes seen as a support and ally in a
context where teachers have a need not to feel alone. As the monitors will not be present
from 2015, this indicates a clear need to ensure that communities appreciate the work that
teachers do for their children and support them in their efforts.
According to IBIS’ internal project report for January-June 2014, teacher absenteeism is still
a considerable problem. In 2013, teachers in the area had an average absence of 33 days.
However, the project states that the vast majority of these days of absence are due to
delays in contracting teachers and to obligatory meetings in Iquitos, and are therefore
caused by the local education authorities (UGEL) rather than the individual teachers.
In December 2013, local authorities from 22 communities in Río Corrientes complained
about the high level of teacher absenteeism. At their request, the project’s four education
monitors, supported by a specialist, produced a draft proposal for a set of internal
regulations (reglamento interno), designed, in its own words, to improve the education that
children receive in school. An element of its intention was to regulate the ways in which
teachers do their jobs and behave in the communities where they work. This document was
discussed with and enriched by the contributions of communities and teachers. In
September 2014, the leaders of 26 communities accepted the proposed regulations, which
will be implemented from 2015.
Curriculum
The project has been able to make use of the official option for regional adaptations of the
national curriculum (diversificación curricular) to introduce school projects that incorporate
central themes in environmental education.
The school allotment (chacra escolar) has been a successful project in many communities.
Students learn cultivation techniques to sow, maintain and harvest various vegetables and
learn about the nutritional values of plants. Many families have their own allotments
(chacras) in or close to the villages but they are often not at all aware of the types of plants
they should cultivate in order to ensure the best nutrition for themselves and their children.
Sometimes products from the school allotments are sold in order to raise money for other
school activities.
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Another fruitful school project carried out in many communities was that of environmental
signposts (letreros ambientales). These were painted wooden signposts with slogans or
short instructions that encouraged people to, for example, be aware of their local
environment, dispose of their litter wisely etc. Teachers pointed out that this project was
motivating for students because it had a specific real-life purpose and was understandable
for the rest of the community as part of a wider campaign, also led by the project, to
improve the local environment. There seemed to be general agreement in the communities
visited by the evaluation team that there was now a lot less rubbish polluting the local
environment than there had been previous to the project period. In most villages, signposts
were visible in both Spanish and the local indigenous language.
In one community, there was a mural or wall newspaper project created by secondary
students of different levels. The central design of the mural was a tree produced from
‘leaves’ cut out of plastic bottles collected around the village and then painted, from which
pupils produced a collage that portrayed their ideal tree in bright colours with flowers and
birds. The purpose of using the plastic bottles as ‘construction material’ was partly to help
the pupils notice how much unwanted rubbish was lying around their village, and partly to
make them aware that this rubbish can often be recycled and reused for other purposes.
The recycled ‘tree wall’ was then used as the basis for other work. For example, students
were made aware of the world outside their local community by reading newspaper articles,
which were categorised according to whether they represented exclusively local, national or
international news and attached to the wall. As the tree wall was mobile, this reading
opportunity was also available to adults in the community. (See photo)
All three projects are demonstrations of ways in which environmental education was
introduced as a cross-curricular element in school, rather than as an independent subject in
itself. There were examples of maths classes using seeds from the school allotment for
calculations and measurements from the allotment for the purpose of determining area.
However, such elements were not always integrated in convincing ways. Environmental
themes might be present in lessons but not focused on in their own right, thereby possibly
limiting what could be learned from them.
There are several possible reasons for this partially unsuccessful cross-curricular integration
of environmental themes. Firstly, lack of experience or lack of (time for) preparation and
experimentation could mean that teachers had a tendency to return to familiar teaching
patterns instead of persevering with the environmental themes. Secondly, the introduction
both of new content (the environmental themes) and of new participatory methodology
within a relatively short space of time might have seemed overwhelming for teachers,
resulting in the less successful application of some of these elements. Thirdly, and closely
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related to the second point, teachers possibly required more intensive advice and support
as to how to integrate new content and new pedagogical methodology into the subjects
that they were used to teaching. The application of new ideas demands increased reflection,
preferably in interaction with others, and therefore takes more time to learn to do
successfully.
Bilingual intercultural education
The 36 communities of the Río Corrientes river basin in which the project worked are all
bilingual indigenous communities (Achuar, Kichwa and Urarina). The project therefore
worked in accordance with national policies for bilingual education, following DIGEIBIR’s
requirements and recommendations for the area. Investigations were undertaken early in
the project period for the Kichwa and Urarina areas and in an earlier IBIS project in 2008-
2010 for the Achuar population in order to establish their sociolinguistic contexts and make
recommendations regarding bilingual education for each of the three indigenous groups.
Additionally, the formal registration of bilingual schools by DIGEIBIR promoted the cause of
bilingual education in both this and other indigenous regions.
Parents now formally have an influence on which teachers are sent to work in their
community schools each year. This allows them, for example, to request a teacher who is
bilingual in Spanish and the indigenous language of the community. An obstacle to this
opportunity has been a legal requirement that all teachers should be formally qualified. This
is obviously in itself a very constructive requirement for education quality but has the
drawback of excluding bilingual indigenous teachers who very often do not have an official
teaching qualification. (In many instances, indigenous teachers have ended in the vicious
cycle of their own school education being of so poor quality that they were not able to
attain sufficiently high grades to be admitted into higher education). FECONACO and other
indigenous federations campaigned for a relaxation of this law, which the UGEL accepted as
an aspect of the promotion of bilingual intercultural education. This applies only to pre-
school and primary school levels; there are no options at secondary level, where bilingual
teachers have to follow the entire regular education process to qualify as secondary school
teachers.
In the long term, however, it will be necessary to make sure that bilingual indigenous
teachers also receive formal teacher training qualifications in order to ensure the quality of
their work. Someone who happens to speak the language of a community, while
undoubtedly at an advantage in many ways, will not automatically for that reason have the
necessary characteristics and knowledge to become a good teacher without the input and
support that formal teacher education would offer.
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FECONACO’s successful advocacy means that there are now bilingual (if not necessarily
formally qualified) teachers in some community schools. Project statistics for 2014
demonstrate the distribution of teacher ethnicity and level of education:
CFD = Con Formación Docente (with a formal teaching qualification)
SFD = Sin Formación Docente (without a formal teaching qualification)
The presence of the Kukama indigenous group in the graph indicates that there are
teachers of Kukama background teaching in schools in Achuar, Kichwa and/or Urarina
communities.
In all four of the communities investigated by the evaluation team, some form of bilingual
education exists, in some cases with a formally qualified teacher, in most cases not. Some
bilingual lessons took place (mainly) in the indigenous language and exhibited the same
range of successes and challenges as classes given by non-indigenous teachers. Some
included intercultural elements, for example linked to the traditional uses of medicinal
plants and focused very much on aspects of life that would be familiar to children in their
local community. There were also classes that were specifically language lessons. In general,
the language lessons observed did not follow the currently accepted norms of
communicative language teaching but rather adhered to the more traditional rote learning
of vocabulary lists of isolated indigenous and Spanish words in translation. This can be
presumably be explained by the indigenous teachers’ lack of formal teacher training in
second language acquisition.
2 2 2 1
25
32
0 1 0 0
9 10
21
1 0 0
4
26
2 0 0 0 1
3
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
ACHUAR KUKAMA KICHWA URARINA NO INDÍGENA TOTALES
Nº DE DOCENTES DE E. PRIMARIA SEGÚN SEXO, FORMACIÓN E IDENTIDAD CULTURAL
PRIMARIA PRIMARIA PRIMARIA PRIMARIA
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
17
The general attitude of teachers, parents’ representatives and local authorities to the
concept of bilingual intercultural education was to claim that it was a good idea because the
indigenous language could be used when the children did not understand the Spanish that
they heard in class. Only a few used other good arguments, for example that children learn
best in a language that they identify with in their everyday lives, that they learn a second
language better if they know their first language thoroughly, or that a strong linguistic and
cultural identity would be an advantage in future community resistance against the negative
effects of the work of the oil company.
It is a positive achievement for the advancement of bilingual education that DIGEIBIR is
planning to continue monitoring the education networks in Río Corrientes in 2015. This is
the result of political advocacy carried out by the project.
Finally, it should also be pointed out that, where there is weak support from parents and the
community in general for the education of their children, the application of bilingual
intercultural education will not necessarily have a much more positive long-term effect than
education in Spanish, other than the obvious immediate practical advantage of being in a
language that the pupils more easily understand.
Planning of teaching
The four education monitors appear to have played a very significant role in the teachers’
planning of their teaching. They were often involved in the facilitation of group planning
sessions, and in the planning of both individual lessons and school projects.
One example of the challenges that teachers faced in connection with planning was in the
setting of goals. They might choose a topic that was appropriate in itself, e.g. ‘Celebrating
the anniversary of our community’, but they were not always capable of converting it into a
learning sequence with objectives, content and products, rather than simply a series of
activities. This could be interpreted as a lack of analytical skills – or at least a lack of analysis
– on the part of the teachers, something which the monitors saw had gradually begun to
change over the final year of the project, although not all felt they had enough time in the
communities to be able to offer consistent support.
Signs of what appeared to be a lack of adequate planning was also evident in some classes,
resulting in the absence of momentum or a sense of direction. (See earlier section on
classroom management).
Participatory methodology
Teachers clearly attempted to apply participatory activities in their classes. They often
organised pupils in groups or set up activities in which pupils had to mix and converse with
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
18
different partners. This was very constructive and indicated an apparent intention to involve
pupils actively in their learning processes. However, many teachers were not quite able
either to prepare pupils sufficiently to carry out the participatory activities or completely to
relinquish the more traditional control over their pupils that they were used to.
In interviews, teachers often had difficulty talking about what participatory teaching really is
and tended to glide away from the topic into other areas of discussion. This could be a
symptom of a lack of knowledge as to what the benefits of participatory teaching are or
perhaps simply a lack of experience in applying it.
Learning achievements of pupils in project schools
The project applied its own tests of students’ learning that covered traditional subjects
integrated with work done in production (proyectos productivos) and environmental
projects. The results for 2013 are presented in the December 2013 edition of the project
magazine Ikianchim (see the two tables below) and indicate a considerable improvement in
all three subject areas tested (science, maths and communication) over the school year1.
Primary 1st – 3rd grade, 2013 Test at start of school year Test at end of school year Subject Science Mathematics Communication
and personal development
Science Mathematics Communication and personal development
Passed 12 % 14 % 22 % 36 % 51 % 52 % Failed 88 % 86 % 78 % 64 % 49 % 48 %
Secondary 1st – 3rd year, 2013
Test at start of school year Test at end of school year Subject Science Mathematics Communication
and personal development
Science Mathematics Communication and personal development
Passed 29 % 32 % 37 % 33 % 51 % 67 % Failed 71 % 68 % 63 % 67 % 49 % 33 %
1 Ikianchim December 2013, p7
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
19
According to IBIS’ internal report for the project period January-June 20142, DIGEIBIR stated
that students showed remarkable improvements that exceed results in similar schools in
other areas of Peru.
In general, village authorities and other local representatives all indicated that they felt their
children’s schooling had improved and that they were achieving better results. These
opinions were expressed more on an instinctive basis (gauged from their personal
experience of their own children’s schooling) than according to any objective criteria but
demonstrate that communities were aware that changes were taking place.
Apart from improvements in academic performance, there were also indications that adults
in the communities noticed other changes that have happened as a result of project
interventions in their children’s schooling. For example, a number of village authorities
mentioned that children had become more polite in the sense that they greet people in the
community, and one teacher had noted that the level of teenage pregnancy had gone down
as a result of work done in school on the topic.
Participation of girls and the collaboration in school between boys and girls
As mentioned earlier, attendance of girls and boys was relatively equal in primary school,
but girls had lower secondary school attendance than boys or dropped out much more
quickly.
Group work in primary school most often took place in groups of mixed gender. Especially in
the younger classes, boys and girls spontaneously gathered in mixed groups when asked to
form groups, and there was no apparent difference in their involvement in the work done or
in their behaviour. There were some exceptions to this, when it was noticeable that some
girls in the older primary level classes chose not to take on a leading role in group work,
even if they otherwise voiced their opinions. (See photo)
At secondary school level, there were also examples of the few girls in attendance always
sitting together in class, working together in group work and almost refusing to be
separated in freer, more participatory activities.
This raises the issue that, with the introduction of participatory methods, the teacher
cannot necessarily assume that everyone will willingly take part without hesitation.
Participatory activities require careful preparation to make sure that they really take their
starting point in the pupils’ own standpoint, including that of the girls, shy pupils and any
other groupings that might have reasons for not immediately getting involved. Follow-up
2 IBIS internal project report 5, p.12
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
20
activities should similarly make sure that all pupils have the opportunity to reflect on their
learning experience and relate new knowledge to the knowledge they already have.
It is worth pointing out at this stage that work with education and gender is not something
that was carried out only at school level. Gender was also an important element of advocacy
and awareness-raising at community level. Several project employees mentioned the
increased involvement of mothers both in activities for the recovery of traditional
knowledge, in school project activities such as the school allotment and the production of
environmental signposts (letreros ambientales), and in production projects (proyectos
productivos). These activities all make local people generally more conscious of the
significant roles that women have and the enormous amount of work that they do in their
local communities. Both the four education monitors and school teachers were given
awareness training in this area and its importance for girls’ understanding of themselves and
their potential acceptance and success in the education system.
2. Changes of attitude in parents and local authorities
It is impossible to generalise about current attitudes or changes of attitude in parents and
local authorities in the project area. Views vary from community to community and also
depend on who one talks to. For example, in the lower Río Corrientes, most people seem to
have felt a positive development, and can identify both school and parents as of utmost
importance in achieving the project’s environmental goals. The fact that teachers received
training in how to move some of their teaching outside the four walls of the classroom
means, in their view, that parents and other members of the community developed a better
understanding both of the importance of education and of the relevance of improving the
local environment.
The teachers in one community gave a specific example of a change in the parents’ attitude
to new teaching methodology. When the project started, they were obviously most familiar
with traditional methodology where all teaching took place within the school. At first, they
objected to their children collecting rubbish in the village during school hours, but they were
gradually won over when they saw the children responding well to the methodology; some
parents actually now help with work in the school allotment and with the collection of
rubbish. One teacher emphasised in particular the importance of this new collaboration
between school and community in giving increased confidence between groupings in the
community.
Similarly, in another community, the President of the Parents’ Association emphasised a
development in the attitude of the parents to their children’s school education. Whereas
previously, parents would take their children out of school for several weeks at a time when
they went to cut and sell timber, they now give greater priority to sending their children to
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
21
school. Their understanding of the importance of education for their children’s future has
improved. In addition, parents and especially women now participate actively their own
educational activities, e.g. in assemblies for the recovery of traditional knowledge. One of
the teachers mentioned the influence of the school allotment on the behaviour of entire
communities. Girls are encouraged to participate in work on the allotment, which is not
normal practice for women on family allotments in all indigenous cultures, but which has
begun to influence the way in which women work in the community.
In the communities of the upper Río Corrientes, the picture was more mixed. Not all local
people really supported the project. This is reflected, for example, in children’s erratic
school attendance and the adults’ lack of participation in the collection of rubbish in the
community. However, the authorities in these communities exhibited an awareness both of
changes taking place in their schools and of the importance of taking care of the
environment, so a generalised conclusion cannot be made.
In general, in all project communities, the main environmental focus in education was on
the local community and much less on the broader issues of water, air and ground pollution
caused by the oil company. See more on this in the evaluation of project component 2
below.
3. Impact of advocacy conducted by FORMABIAP
The advocacy that FORMABIAP has done within the sphere of the project can be divided
into two categories: (1) advocacy done in relation to education authorities at local and
regional level; (2) advocacy done in project communities to raise awareness of the
importance of education.
Some of the advocacy done in relation to education authorities was done jointly with
FECONACO, where FORMABIAP took responsibility for the pedagogical aspect of the
advocacy, while FECONACO dealt with the political side. This was the case, for example, with
the successful advocacy to relax the law concerning the employment only of formally
qualified teachers (mentioned earlier in the section on bilingual education). The UGEL (local
education authorities) accepted the pedagogical and political argumentation for the
contracting of unqualified teachers who are bilingual in Spanish and the language of the
community where they work.
The success of advocacy with regard to bilingual education is also demonstrated by the fact
that DIGEIBIR is planning to take over both project materials and the monitoring and
support of teachers from 2015.
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
22
Much of FORMABIAP’s other advocacy work with education authorities took the form of
regular contact with regard to administration of project activities and information about the
plans and achievements of the project. In connection with the former, it was normal
formally to arrange visits to the Río Corrientes communities through the UGEL and
FECONACO. Furthermore, the UGEL sent out teachers’ formal invitations to the project’s
capacity building activities since their official approval is necessary for all activities that
involve teachers leaving their classrooms.
Every time that the monitors went to the Río Corrientes on a project visit, the project team
met with the director of the UGEL in order to explain the purpose and content of the
activities. When the monitors returned, there would be another meeting to present the
results and achievements of the activities. These meetings were always constructive but
their effect was limited by the constant changes of staff, including at management level, in
the UGEL. This significantly reduced any sense of continuity and means that the UGEL as an
institution does not know the project very well.
This advocacy work was well received by the UGEL. However, the UGEL felt that the project
took over activities that the UGEL regarded as its own role to carry out, which made some
aspects of collaboration awkward. For example, one of the intentions of the project was to
do some of the capacity building workshops together with the UGEL, which did not happen.
Advocacy in relation to regional education authorities (DREL – Dirección Regional de
Educación en Loreto) took the form of the presentation of the results of the tests that the
project did at the start and finish of each school year with children and young people in the
Río Corrientes communities. As mentioned earlier, these tests gave positive results.
Most of FORMABIAP’s advocacy work was done in the communities of Río Corrientes where
its main intention was to improve parents’ and village authorities’ awareness of the
importance of their children’s education both for their own (the children’s) future and for
the ability of the community as a whole to have an influence on its own future
development.
This awareness-raising was done through, for example, presentations and discussions at
village meetings (asambleas), by bringing elements of school education out of the
classroom and into the community (the school allotments and the production of
environmental signposts are good examples of this), and by making teaching relevant
and participatory so pupils learned more and developed skills and knowledge that were
obviously useful, also in their parents’ eyes.
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
23
Advocacy at community level has also focused specifically on girls’ education and girls’
role in the community. For example, meetings were held with parents to help them
encourage their daughters to participate more in the home by showing interest in their
activities and asking for their opinions on different subjects. The four education
monitors have also worked with parents on the subject of trust in their daughters with
regard to sending them to secondary school, especially in cases where it is necessary to
send them to another community for secondary education. Parents have learned about
human rights, including the rights of girls, they have learned that everyone is capable of
learning and developing, and monitors have explained that they should matriculate
their daughters in secondary school for these reasons. According to the Coordinator of
project component 1, this advocacy has had an effect, because school matriculation has
increased for every year of the project, and many more girls are now matriculated and
actually attend school. This information contradicts somewhat some of the statements
made by teachers in the upper Río Corrientes area. However, a possible conclusion
could be that increased school matriculation of girls is a first sign of an awareness of the
importance of education and that increased attendance will follow as a result of further
advocacy and support of families concerning the challenges that lead them to keeping
their daughters at home.
As has already been noted above in earlier sections of this report, this local awareness-
raising is a long process and some results have been achieved in some of the project
communities. It is important to acknowledge that the project’s three years’ work is not
a long time in this context (many people expressed a desire for the project to continue
into the future), that work was done on many fronts (with parents, village authorities,
school teachers, students etc.) and that progress was gradually made. The continued
sustainability of these changes depends both on the strength and perseverance of those
in the communities who have already become aware of and capable of doing something
about the challenges that exist, and on the future support of relevant institutions such
as FECONACO, DIGEIBIR, and the UGEL in the improvement of education and the
capacity building of village authorities, parents and teachers.
The final advocacy event held by the project was a presentation in Iquitos in January 2015 of
this evaluation and the achievements of the project. The audience included, apart from
project organisations, representatives of such institutions as DIGEIBIR, the Regional
Government of Loreto, the Municipality of Trompeteros, ORPIO (Regional Organisation of
Indigenous Peoples), and IIAP (Peruvian Amazon Research Institute). In addition, a large
number of local community authorities and school principals and teachers attended. All
participants, from director and coordinator to community level, emphasised the importance
of the continuation of the work already done by the project, the dominant metaphor being
one of a seed having been sown which was now ripe for further cultivation and support.
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
24
One of the most important achievements of the project, the intended continuation of
pedagogical monitoring work by DIGEIBIR, was confirmed by the director of DIGEIBIR at this
event.
Project component 2
Quantitative results
1. Number of people taking part in capacity building3
In 2013, nine human rights monitors (promotores legales) were trained, all of them male. In
2014, there were 34 human rights monitors in capacity building, five female and 29 male.
There was no list available for 2012, the first year of the project. All the campaigners who
took part during the first year had dropped out by the start of the second year, so everyone
on the list was new from the second year of the project.
The human rights campaigners varied widely in age. Of those who were members of the
team in 2014, the youngest (two men) were 19 years old, 19 were in their twenties, nine
were in their thirties, six were in their forties, one was in his fifties and three (one man and
two women) were in their sixties.
There was a view that younger people are less stable (although not necessarily less good) in
the role of human rights campaigner because they tend to leave either to study or to work
in the oil company. Older people tend to stay longer and take the task more seriously.
2. Number of capacity building activities carried out by FECONACO
FECONACO carried out a total of three capacity-building workshops with the human rights
campaigners (promotores legales), one in each year of the project. The third workshop was
held in December 2014, almost too late to have an effect on the work of the project itself.
This delay was due to problems with the release of funds to finance the event.
With villagers and local authorities, there were not capacity-building workshops as such.
They were invited to take part in annual meetings (asambleas) held for everyone in one
community. In 2014, the meeting was held in Pampa Hermosa and 97 people attended from
26 communities.
3. Number of participants (individuals and community representatives) taking part in
FECONACO’s annual assembly
3 Annex X – list of human rights campaigners (‘promotores legales’) who took part in capacity building
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
25
In FECONACO’s annual assembly of the 22nd-24th September, 2014, participation was as
follows4:
26 communities from the Río Corrientes river basin took part
Almost all of these 26 communities were represented by an Apu or Vice-Apu
(indigenous leaders). Three of the communities had no indigenous leader present.
Four communities were represented by only one person, most often (apart from in one
case) by an indigenous leader. The rest had at least two representatives present and
some up to five (five are invited from each community).
Qualitative results
1. Impact of the work of the environmental monitors (monitores ambientales) and
human rights campaigners (promotores legales)
There are two groups of monitors/campaigners who are associated with the project’s work:
Human rights campaigners (promotores legales) who worked on a strictly voluntary
basis and operated only within the sphere of the project. Their role was to improve
communities’ awareness of their indigenous rights generally speaking and their rights in
relation to the activities of the oil industry in the region in particular, e.g. the right to
compensation for pollution of drinking water or for illnesses caused by pollution, and
the right to compensation for the oil company’s use of indigenous territories for
pipelines. They also supported the organisation and communication of the communities
in relation to the oil company and helped to generate new forms of leadership.
Environmental monitors (promotores ambientales), a group that had already existed for
many years within FECONACO before the project started, and which worked in parallel
with the project as their aims coincided. The environmental monitors have two main
roles: (1) to monitor the pipelines of the oil company and detect and report any leaks;
(2) to raise awareness of environmental issues in the communities of Río Corrientes,
including visiting schools and speaking to students about these themes.
One of the differences in conditions of work between the two groups, which evidently
caused some difficulties, was the fact that the human rights campaigners, as mentioned
above, worked purely voluntarily, while the environmental monitors receive a small
payment for the work they do. This apparently gave rise to some misunderstandings among
potential human rights monitors who expected to receive payment and then left the group
again once they realised that this was not going to happen.
In the communities, there were different reactions to the presence and work of the
environmental monitors and human rights campaigners, varying from those who seemed
4 Annex X – a complete list of participants
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
26
never to have seen them to those who valued their work highly. For example, one teacher
had invited the human rights campaigners to come and talk to his pupils but had not been
able to get them to come. In another case, a community leader claimed that he had never
heard of the human rights campaigners. An experience was also voiced that neither the
environmental monitors nor the human rights campaigners had an adequate understanding
of the issues they worked with or the material that they were given by the project, making it
difficult to take advantage of their role.
On the other hand, the coordinator of the project’s component 2 was very positive in his
view of the range and impact of the work done by the human rights campaigners. Despite
the instability of the membership of the group, the human rights campaigners received
quality capacity building from outside experts and had a high level of knowledge of their
obligations. He explained how the campaigners took part in village meetings (asambleas)
and how they achieved sufficient standing to now be awarded official time to speak at these
meetings, where they could share their knowledge with community members. He also
expected them to continue their work after the official end of the project in 2014. They will
not receive more external capacity building but they will receive materials for self-teaching
(currently in print) and FECONACO has strategies in place to ensure their continued role, for
example in village meetings.
FECONACO’s administrator stated that they would like to see the human rights campaigners
as a group becoming as established as the environmental monitors who have existed for
much longer. He pointed out that the federations and communities from other river basins
have noticed the effect of the project, including the work of the human rights campaigners
and are inspired by it. However, he also admitted that something would have to be done to
maintain the group. For example, he was aware that all the monitors who were part of the
group in 2012 had gone by 2013. He was also aware that some of the newer members are
older women, which he considered important for the stability of the group. He suggested
that a stable core of human rights campaigners would be able to train new members,
something which would ensure a degree of sustainability for the group.
In general, it seemed that many people in the communities had difficulties distinguishing
between the environmental monitors and the human rights campaigners. The
environmental group is more established and better known and it would appear that there
was an assumption that the human rights campaigners did the same things. For example,
several people (from a future community leader to a potential human rights campaigner)
thought that the human rights campaigners sent reports to FECONACO about levels of
pollution. Possibly their name in Spanish (promotores legales) does not really speak for itself
in the same way as that of the environmental monitors (monitores ambientales).
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
27
While some people reported active environmental monitors in their communities, others
said that the monitors had a tendency to focus on the part of their job that involved finding
oil leaks (for which they received payments from the oil company) rather than on their
awareness-raising role in the communities. This was possibly a symptom of the ‘culture of
money’ that some people said had developed in the region.
2. Changes of attitudes among villagers as a result of awareness-raising
Local environment
Most people felt that their villages were now much cleaner and tidier (in terms of the
disposal of rubbish) than they had been before the project started. Some people’s view of
the effect of this was limited to the visual aspects, e.g. that the village was more respectable
and looked nicer when people came to visit, while others were aware of health benefits,
such as the avoidance of unwanted animals entering houses and causing disease.
Whether or not this awareness of the increased cleanliness of the communities also
included a real change of attitude among villagers concerning, for example, their own
responsibilities with regard to the local environment, seemed to vary considerably. For
example, while one of the village authorities expressed the view that the task of collecting
and disposing of litter is the responsibility of the entire community, including adults, others
said that villagers do not have time to collect rubbish because they have to work. A specific
example in one community was of children from the whole school having regular rubbish-
collecting days on Fridays, but without the participation of the adults; the adults had come
to see it as something that the children did and would only take action if instructed to do so
by the local authorities.
Health
Villagers’ knowledge of the link between health and the environment was extremely
variable. While, as mentioned above, some were aware of the significance for people’s
health of a hygienic local environment and others had knowledge of the health problems
that are caused by pollution from the oil company (e.g. increased levels of heavy metals in
the blood, certain types of cancer etc.), others still appeared to be confused as to where the
different diseases that are prevalent in the river basin come from. A not insignificant
number of people, when asked about the illnesses and other health problems caused by
pollution from the oil company, named as examples malaria, dengue and influenza, which,
of course, have nothing directly to do with pollution.
There are several problems connected with this lack of knowledge, two of which are:
Without the necessary knowledge, ordinary people are not capable of taking basic
preventative or other measures to protect their own health;
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
28
Without correct knowledge of the health issues caused by pollution from oil extraction,
communities and their representatives risk not being taken seriously when they
attempt to negotiate better conditions with or compensation from the oil company for
damage caused.
Local environmental issues vs. wider pollution caused by oil extraction
In the context of the project, it is evident that environmental issues were divided into two
main categories: (1) the local environment and problems caused by the rubbish thrown
away by the people who live there; (2) the wider problems of ground, river and air pollution
caused by the oil industry.
It appears that the main focus in the three years of the project, at least in the minds of the
majority of the target population, was on the local environment at community level. When
asked about the environmental themes that the project worked with, most people very
quickly mentioned the level of cleanliness and tidiness in their villages and emphasised how
this had got much better since the project started three years ago. When prompted by
leading questions, most were also aware of the wider pollution issues but it was not
something that they mentioned spontaneously. In some classes, wider pollution issues were
taught, at least in passing, and there were both teachers and authorities who treated the oil
pollution problems with urgency, but it appeared not to be uppermost in the minds of the
majority of the adult population.
There could be various reasons for this apparent almost exclusive focus on the local
environment and lack of urgency concerning the ultimately more serious challenges
presented by the wider pollution. For example:
Apart from direct oil leaks, most of the river and air pollution caused by the oil industry
is so far invisible to the naked eye. Rubbish strewn along the river bank in front of the
village is, on the other hand, extremely visible and therefore easier to identify and
relate to as a problem.
There are varied reports as to the level of presence of the environmental monitors in
local communities. If it is true that they do not all spend as much time on awareness-
raising activities in the communities as intended, then it is possible that villagers did not
receive enough information about or have enough opportunity to discuss wider
pollution issues, leading to an imbalance in their knowledge and priorities.
Given the slow start to the establishment of a group of qualified human rights
campaigners, there was inevitably a considerable number of communities that did not
have the opportunity for support and capacity building on this front. (See above for a
description of the type of support that the human rights campaigners were intended to
be able to offer).
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
29
As pointed out by a number of interviewees, three years is not a long time scale for this
kind of project. Educational processes, awareness-raising processes and achieving
results from advocacy on environmental issues are all very time-consuming. In this
context, it is possibly natural that the first changes will happen on a local scale at
community level and that wider, regional social and political changes will take longer to
materialise.
Whatever the causes of the exclusive focus on the local community environment and what
people themselves can do about it, it is essential that there is a continued effort to raise
awareness of the wider pollution issues. This is not only important because of the
seriousness of these wider issues and the necessity for local people to be capable of doing
something about them; it is also important that communities do not get stuck with the
notion that pollution and other environmental problems are something that are exclusively
their fault and something that only they can solve. It is absolutely vital that they are aware
that there are other responsible parties and that they have a right to demand action both
directly from these parties themselves and from the Peruvian state.
Influence of community authorities
A sign of a certain lack of change in the attitudes of some villagers, despite the awareness-
raising activities that took place, could be the apparent dependence that people appeared
to have in some communities on the motivating influence of their local authorities. For
example, in at least one case, parents in the village would not take part in the clearing of
rubbish, even though they saw their children doing it and knew it was important, unless the
village authorities told them to do so.
However, it is important to point out that this was in no way universal. There were several
other instances of parents learning from and being inspired by their children’s knowledge
and enthusiasm concerning the local environment.
3. Impact of advocacy conducted by FECONACO
FECONACO has been conducting political advocacy on the subject of indigenous people’s
rights in relation to the environment since 1991. In the context of this project, they carried
out the following advocacy activities:
In relation to local education authorities (UGEL), they campaigned on various aspects of
the employment and deployment of teachers to the Río Corrientes river basin. As
already mentioned earlier, FECONACO successfully negotiated the deployment of
bilingual teachers despite their lack of formal teaching qualifications.
In relation to the state, they conducted, in collaboration with other indigenous
federations, advocacy in the ‘Comisión Multisectorial’ within the Peruvian Ministry of
Justice and Human Rights to try to ensure that the State fulfils its environmental
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
30
obligations. This is an illustration of the strength in unity that can come when
indigenous federations collaborate in advocacy work in relation to the State. In one
community, one of the authorities suggested that there should be more unity across
different institutions such as FECONACO, various levels of authorities, the police etc. in
order to be able to campaign against the State.
FECONACO carried out advocacy in the communities of Río Corrientes through the
environmental monitors and human rights campaigners. Through their work, it was
intended that community members should learn about the wider pollution caused by
the oil industry, their rights in this respect and the ways in which they can react. As
explained earlier, this did not succeed in all communities, both because work started
late with the human rights campaigners and because some environmental monitors
appear not to prioritise the community-based aspects of their work.
They have done advocacy work directly with the oil company, for example in supporting
campaigns for compensation for oil leaks or for the use of indigenous territory for
pipelines. In one community, there was an example of how the oil company had taken
water samples to test for pollution. FECONACO came to take samples at the same time
in order to be able to check the results of the tests that the company had had taken,
thereby putting pressure on the company to take action.
One of the major challenges facing the communities of Río Corrientes is the gradual
dismantling of traditional social structures. What one of the education monitors called a
‘culture of money’ has made an entry and affected the way people plan for themselves
and their families and the way they prioritize their activities. For example, the current
relative ease with which parents experience that work can be found with the oil
company and the relatively high wages that they can earn mean that they do not all see
education as a high priority for their children. Although the oil company had reportedly
made it a condition of employment that children are matriculated in school, this did not
necessarily entail an interest or engagement in the children’s education and parents
were known to be unwilling to pay for such basics as paper and pencils, despite
receiving a wage that meant they could afford it.
Quite apart from the social destructuring that can result from this situation, the
employment
of villagers by the oil company placed them in a personal dilemma in relation to advocacy
work done by both FECONACO and FORMABIAP. On the one hand, they might be able to
understand the evidence and arguments presented in favour of greater environmental
awareness and action, and see why the way the oil company works is problematic. On the
other hand, they want work and would like to continue enjoying the benefits of having a
wage, which can mean that they are unwilling to do anything that would risk either their
own job or the position of the company in the river basin. This could explain the very mixed
changes in the attitudes of people in local communities.
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
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Collaboration between the institutions involved in the project: FECONACO,
FORMABIAP and IBIS
There is general agreement that collaboration between local partners FECONACO and
FORMABIAP got off to a bad start in 2012. Different project participants have their own
examples of what went wrong, but it would appear that a combination of internal problems
in FECONACO during the first year of the project and incompatible ideas concerning aspects
of project administration made successful collaboration difficult.
During the last two years of the project, collaboration improved considerably. FECONACO
and FORMABIAP acknowledged each other’s strengths and were able to make use of these.
For example, FECONACO was inspired by FORMABIAP’s knowledge and experience in the
field of education, and FORMABIAP had acquired a great deal of respect for the political
results achieved by FECONACO, e.g. the Act of Dorissa, and the strong base that they have in
the communities of Río Corrientes.
Sustainability of the project’s work and results
Discussion of the project’s sustainability has categorised into various sub-topics:
The general opinion was that aspects of the project’s work, such as certain pedagogical
ideas and activities, and the collection of rubbish in some communities, would continue
after the formal project period ended, although this will undoubtedly be more difficult
without the support and motivation of the four education monitors.
A number of interviewees point out that three years is not a long time for the types of
development that the project has attempted to achieve. A number of people suggested
that many more years would be needed to effect these kinds of changes and the
president of FECONACO made the point that it would take more than three years to
reverse more than 40 years of exploitation.
Most of the teachers interviewed claimed that they would continue to use the project’s
themes and methodology in their teaching. Some authorities also had this expectation
of the teachers in their communities, including a confidence that any new teachers that
arrived would be able to adopt the project’s ways of working with the support of their
colleagues. However, teachers have grown accustomed to the support they receive
from monitors and there will inevitably be aspects of the project (possibly different
from community to community and from teacher to teacher) that will be more difficult
to carry out without encouragement. This could be, for example, planning in
collaboration with colleagues, implementing participatory ideas etc.
Final Evaluation: El Petróleo en La Selva
32
One of the most severe challenges to the sustainability of teachers’ work is the staff
rotation system. While some individual teachers might be able to sustain some aspects
of the project’s content and methodology wherever they end up working, the collective
identity of community schools will be difficult to maintain (at least without very strong
leadership) and new teachers entering schools for the first time will find it challenging
to take on the project approach unless time is set aside for expert guidance.
On a very practical level, there is a sustainability challenge in the provision of such
everyday basics as paper and pens which the project provided and which not all parents
are willing or able to pay for. In many cases, teachers pay for these things out of their
own pockets – an immediate but not long-term sustainable solution.
FECONACO’s involvement at local level, directly or through the work of environmental
monitors and human rights campaigners is still very necessary in order to ensure
community ownership and therefore the sustainability of the achievements of the
project.
The President of FECONACO described the experience that FECONACO had developed
considerably as an organisation during the project period. He mentioned as examples
improvements in how to lead and organise meetings and workshops, how to carry out
advocacy and support others’ advocacy (e.g. that of village authorities), how to work as
a team, treat people with respect and everyone as equals. This is obviously promising
for their future work in Río Corrientes.
The continuing role of the Peruvian Ministry of the Environment in the enforcement of
the Dorissa Accord of 2006 is essential for the sustainability of work with the
environmental and human rights aspects of the project, as is the role of the Ministry of
Education (through DIGEIBIR) for the sustainability of its pedagogical components. In
general, it is vital that the State take over the various roles that NGOs and other
institutions have had during the project period.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my thanks to all those who supported and participated in the
elaboration of this final evaluation: project coordinators, monitors, teachers, school
principals, students, representatives of community groups and community authorities and,
last but not least, all of those who organised and carried out practical arrangements