Almir Suruí talks about the first indigenous university in Brazil

Almir Suruí talks with Lourival Sant’Anna on the Earth News Terra podcast

Almir Suruí, 47, an indigenous leader of the Paiter-Suruí people, is the first interviewee of the Earth News Terra podcast. The premiere episode is available from this Sunday, June 5th, World Environment Day, on the Earth News Terra website and YouTube channel and also on your favorite podcast app.

In the interview, carried out last April, when Almir was in Geneva, Switzerland, participating in an international meeting on indigenous peoples, Suruí talks about the project to launch the Paiter University, the first indigenous university in Brazil. Suruí says that the project has been developed in partnership with Unicamp, the State University of Campinas, in São Paulo.

The indigenous leader, who studied Applied Biology at the Catholic University of Goiás, says that the indigenous university may have the role of connecting with other teaching and research institutions to spread indigenous knowledge. “The goal is to build a more collaborative future with society and the forest.”

Paiter University will be structured in the Sete de Setembro Indigenous Land, located in the municipality of Cacoal, in Rondônia.

The podcast with Almir Suruí has ​​three episodes. In the interview, the indigenous leader also talks about the challenges faced by the Covid-19 pandemic,  indigenous territories and about the creation of a tourist hub in the indigenous lands of the Suruí people. Father of activist Txai Suruí, who represented Brazil at COP-26 in Glasgow last year, Almir also talks about the impact of activism on his family life and on his youngest son, four months old, the Oyamatageönb Painer Gameb Suruí. Oyamatageönb, in the Paiter-Suruí language, means “son of the universe”.