“Awakening and strengthening Woman Medicine cross-culturally”
Recovering women’s true feminine essence is the only thing that can genuinely bring sustainable “empowerment” back to women, as this has a direct effect on self-knowledge, more self-responsibility towards our bodies, self-love and self-esteem, which are the basic drivers to making and sustaining positive changes in women’s reproductive health and lives. A viable way in which Andean women of rural Peru can successfully defend their real agency in reproductive health has to be sustained by the following conditions: to have a solid cultural identity, a local women’s network that can support and empower each other and can advocate for the promotion and defense of women’s health rights, and the access to unbiased information in reproductive health which is woman-centered.
Thus, Killa Warmi (Moon Woman in Quechua, Andean native language) Project was first created for Andean women and girls of Peru in 2008 as an intercultural reproductive health education project, as part of the vision of Hampi Warmi (Woman Medicine in Quechua) Initiative.
The goal of Hampi Warmi Initiative is to bring reproductive autonomy back to Andean-Quechua women, through reconnection with the sacredness of our female bodies and honoring of our Rites of Passage, the revaluing of our embodied female body-wisdom and of practices that sustain our women’s health in holistic ways, our connection to Pachamama, and strengthening of local female support networks.
All of these components are transversal to the workshops/ wisdom sharings/ women’s circles on which the project is based, together with the project’s strong focus in the revitalization of Andean local feminine medical knowledge, which is sustained by Andean community midwives whose knowledge is now at risk by the current politics of Peru in public reproductive health.
We have currently 4 active sub-projects:
1. Tika Warmi (Flowering Woman)
Program to girls (and teachers for its continuity) on intercultural menstrual health and woman-centered reproductive health education, with the emphasis on revaluing and reintroducing our Andean menstrual and spiritual practices (including Moontime traditional herbal-allies), use of healthier menstrual products (clothpads donations), sisterhood building, and reintroducing the Andean menarque honoring ceremony of the Kikuchikuy. Workshops for girls to make their own pad inserts will be included. Upon completion, girls are given the title and responsibility of being "Guardians of Woman Medicine". This program will be extended to women through KillaWarmi, with women's circles on sharing about the importance of having our cycles (not suppressing them with hormonal methods) and reclaiming our Andean-traditional moontime practices.
2. “Mamantin” (mother-baby binomial Andean concept)
Program around Birthkeeping. We hold circles with community women to discuss and dream pathways to reclaiming (home)birth back to our communities (including Andean community-midwifery), birth-story medicine circles (including trauma healing circles), and sharing of Andean midwifery knowledge and traditional midwifery techniques and practical skills. We hold the "Wachakuy: Sacred Birth Way" birth training program and intercultural program for local indigenous (professionally-trained) health workers to provide more adequate care, more respectful and loving practices both for mama-baby, to decolonize basic midwifery practices. We provide (partial)scholarships to Peruvian professional-midwives. Focus on Strengthening & Revitalizing Andean Traditional Midwifery through research, advocacy, promotion & education.
3. "Mujeres de Maiz" (Women of Corn)
sub-project, to promote the vision of Protecting Mother Corn in Peru. Mama Sara (Mother Corn in Quechua) is deeply revered and valued traditionally, not only for her food, but also as a living-symbol of female fertility (in different layers) crucial to the reproduction of Life in our Andean culture. Families are increasingly building houses to rent on their crop lands (as it can be more profitable), so we feel it is important to celebrate and honor the ones who are still lovingly holding to their lands and tending them. There is also the risk of GMO corn entering Peru (although until now the government has remained protective), so we want to create a simple pamphlet with beautiful images to educate about the importance of defending our sacred Corn seeds. We have the vision to awaken this Remembering and consciousness, and express the value of Corn Guardians through Photography. A visual-photograph exhibition in Pisaq town, where the women who care for Corn are honored.
4. Hampi Warmi Wasi (Woman's Medicine earth-home)
The 4th sub-project in a way “houses” all of the last, being the manifestation of Hampi Warmi Wasi (Woman's Medicine earth-home) community-center, in traditional adobe-earth building. This small circular building will be adjacent to our MoonMedicine Temple (a garden circular Woman Medicine space, surrounded by Abuelo Wachuma protector Cactus and Jazmine flowers and Hampi Rosa). Having a sacred physical space in our land to hold our Woman-Medicine circles (as Kikuchikuy Ceremonies) will make our community-vision stronger. All these sub-projects intertwine harmonically and weave the loom of Hampi Warmi's prayer around the Protection of our ancestral Woman Medicine ways here in the Sacred Valley in the Andes.
All these sub-projects intertwine harmonically and weave the loom of Hampi Warmi’s prayer around the Protection of our ancestral Woman Medicine ways here in the Sacred Valley in the Andes.
To see the story and pictures of the project visit our blog www.killawarmiproject.blogspot.
If you want to directly donate to any of these sub-projects you can do it through Paypal to hampiwarmi@gmail.com
Hampi Warmi also celebrates the cultural dialogue between Andean knowledge-wisdom and of other ancestral traditions that also honor women’s bodies & Rites of Passage and feminine spirituality, such as the Native NorthAmerican & Mexican Peoples. Hampi Warmi promotes and facilitates the sharing of this sacred wisdom to be given to women all over the world – regardless of religion, cultural background, or race – so that we can all Remember to live our feminine nature and bodies in a genuinely empowering and sacred way.
A window to the history and inspiration of the origins of Hampi Warmi & beyond …
Since 2008, through KillaWarmi (Moon Woman in Quechua) self-sustainable Project (now part of my “umbrella” project Hampi Warmi (Woman Medicine)) I have been working in these 16 years with Andean-Quechua women and girls across the Peruvian Andes around reproductive health (participatory & intercultural) education and revaluing of our Woman Medicine Andean wisdom. In the beginning, this dream started as an itinerant project. In the first three years of the project, I worked together with women and girls in the Andean Quechua communities in Huari and Carhuaz province (Ancash Region), and in Pacca community – Anta province and Huandar community – Calca province (Cusco Region). I stayed over 9 months in each of these communities and worked transversally with health workers of the local public-health (birth) centers on cultural sensitivity, women’s reproductive/cultural rights around birth, and on intercultural midwifery models of care. These practical workshops also focus on reducing obstetric invasive (unnecessary routine) practices, and reintroducing less-invasive care as use of fetoscopes, more culturally-pertinent for Andean women. Since 2011, I am based long-term in the Sacred Valley in Cusco, where I have continued this transversal community-work around the promotion and envisioning of the Protection of our Andean Sacred Ways around Woman Medicine and Birthkeeping with Andean-Quechua communities in Pisac district (Pisac, Huandar and Amaru) through woman’s medicine workshops, women’s circles, and the TikaWarmi program, with an emphasis in dreaming pathways to the cultural continuation of Andean community-based midwifery, which is at great risk of disappearing since last decades.
Having studied during my fieldwork years with Andean traditional midwives alongside with my applied social work (since 2008), I decided to start independent holistic-midwifery studies (since 2019) to dreaming ways of making community-midwifery sustainable again in the Peruvian Andes. I also created since 2017 the “Wachakuy: Sacred Birth Way” program for Peruvian conventionally-(biomedically)-trained midwives too, students and aspiring doulas, within the vision of decolonizing midwifery practices (and education) and revitalizing Andean sacred midwifery. Having accomplished the dream to being Guardian of a piece of land in Qosqo Ayllu Community in this area, being rooted and planting in this piece of land, I aspire to continue my quest into envisioning ways to Protecting Andean feminine wisdom, especially Birthkeeping, for our future generations of girls and spirit-babies to be born.