FMT in partnership with The Global Institute For Tomorrow (GIFT) brings you Covid-19 “healers” from Ecuador.

Justino Piaguage is the President of the Siekopai Nation, who lives in Pë’këya, an ancestral territory in the northeastern part of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

In mid- 2020, Covid-19 infections began to appear in the community.

Justino knew it was time to sound the alarm, yet his warnings received little response from the health authorities. Within a few weeks, Siekopai elders began to die from the coronavirus.

The people knew that every time an elder dies, an entire library’s worth of knowledge is lost. When Justino fell ill, he remembered a story from his grandmother.

When a great disease, similar to the flu, arrived a hundred years ago, the community turned to a very useful plant in the jungle.

Justino launched a search for the plant, guided by the memories of the Siekopai. Studying his own symptoms, he experimented with plants until he found the right one.

His symptoms disappeared after three days: he had found the plant his grandmother had told him about.

Combining this traditional knowledge with Western technology and medicine, he was able to bring aid and medicine to patients throughout the territory, including with other indigenous people.

He toured the territories of the Shuar, Kichwa, Siona and Kofan indigenous nations, with outstanding results.

Justino Piaguage is the indigenous leader of the Siekopai Indigenous Nation in the Upper Amazon. He has a BA in local sustainable development from Ecuador, with more than 20 years of experience in leadership processes. View his portfolio here. 

‘The Other Hundred Healers’ is an initiative by the non-profit organisation GIFT. The 240-page, full-colour, hardcover book can be purchased here at US$40 per copy for a minimum order of 20 copies.