Initiatives, Objectives, Programs and Projects
Purposeful Developments
Our initiatives, missions, programs and projects that the foundation can support reflect strategic objectives and values to satisfy our purposes and create our vision focused on ecological sustainability and preserving biological diversity. Our place in your world is as important to us as our own place in the world, understanding the balance is the responsibility we all share.
Simeon Moreno and the Indigenous people living in his community came to Globcal International in 2016 with the idea that they would produce Indigenous Chocolate from Cacao. So together they drafted a business plan to form a start-up in Caracas with chocolate makers for the very unique hand-made chocolate. The prospect of doing business internationally under Venezuelan law was daunting giving rise to the Huottuja Foundation. Globcal International also discovered that Simeon's tribe (Huottuja-De'aruhua) was one of just 33 legal Indigenous sources of wild Theobroma cacao and that it was being cultivated for more than 400 years. To protect our Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property the foundation trademarked INDIGENOUS CHOCOLATE in common law. As it appears the cacao grown is some of the rarest in the world, fair-trade valued at as much as $9-$15 per kilo, FOB Puerto Carreño, Colombia.
ProBiodiversa
ProBiodiversa has been working with the Piaroa since 2010 in the Gavilan area promoting agroforestry and ecotourism efforts. They have become involved in producing a documentary about Indigenous peoples in Venezuela. The organization received a grant from GEF in 2012 and built a small tree seedling nursery in the Gavilan community.
The video focuses on the Piaroa (Huottuja) that live in the Upper Catañiapo and Upper Cuao River Valleys in the center of the Huottuja-De'aruhua Territory.
British Council
The “Cultural Heritage for Inclusive Growth” programme (CH4IG), known in Colombia as “Sowing Our Knowledge”, develops strategies to foster the cultural heritage of the indigenous people they work with, by collaboratively planning actions that promote wellbeing and the preservation of an Indigenous worldview, identity and land. They work jointly with indigenous peoples to define actions, based on inclusive growth models, that can advance their well-being and sustainability.
They currently work with the Piaroa (Uwottuja) of the Gran Selva de Matavén Reserve, where the San Luis de Zama and La Urbana communities are located.